Randolph Harris II International

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I’ve Got a Secret!

According to Dr. Freud, “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” Many of us know the story of Cinderella, and those who do understand she struggled with being a victim of abuse and manipulation, and all most losing the man she loved to her abusers. There are many interesting features in the story of Cinderella. First, the cast is much larger than it appears at first sight. In order of appearance, the persons are as follows: Father, Stepmother, Daughter A, Daughter B, Cinderella, (Mother), Godmother, (Coachman, Footmen), (People at the ball), Prince, King, (Queen), (Guards), A Gentleman, Two Lords. This comprises nine principal characters, a few silent parts, and one-liners, and lots of extras. The most interesting thing about the cast is that almost all of them are crooked. Another feature is the clarity of the switches, which is common to most stories intended for children. Cinderella starts out as an O.K. person, the becomes first a Victim, later a teasing Persecutor, and finally a Rescuer. The stepmother and her daughters are changed from Persecutors into Victims, much more so in the German “Ashenputtel” version, where the two stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to make the slipper fit. The story also introduces the other two classical roles, as found in the “Alcoholic” game. The connection in this case is played by the godmother, who supplies Cinderella with what she needs, while the Patsies are the lord who were chosen to marry the wicked sisters. #RandolphHarris 1 of 28

Let us now consider the scripts of the people involved. It takes a little time to realize how many of the characters have their scripts revealed in this apparently simple tale. 1. Cinderella. She has a happy childhood, but then must suffer until a certain event happens. The crucial scenes, however, are times structured: she can enjoy herself as much as she pleases until the stroke of midnight, and then she must return to her former state. Cinderella apparently avoided the temptation to play, “Ain’t it Awful,” even with her father, and is simply a melancholy, forlorn figure until the action begins with the ball. Then she plays, “Try and Catch Me” with the Prunce, and later, with a scripty smile, “I’ve Got a Secret” with her sisters. The climax comes with a smashing game of, “Now She Tells Us,” as Cinderella, with a teasing laugh, gets the payoff for the winning script. 2. Father. Father’s script calls for him to lose his first wife and then cast off his daughter and marry a bossy (and presumably frigid) woman who will make him and her suffer. However, he has a trick up his sleeve, as we shall soon see. 3. Stepmother. She has a loser’s script. She, too, plays, “Now She Tells Me,” seducing the fathers into marrying her and then revealing her true, wicked self immediately after the wedding. She lives through her daughters, and hopes to get a princely payoff for them from her mean behavior, but ends up the loser. #RandolphHarris 2 of 28

The Stepsisters. Their counterscripts are based on their mother’s precept, “Take care of yourself first and do not give a sucker an even break,” but the outcome is based on the injunction “Do not succeed.” Since that is also the script injunction for their mother, it was evidently transmitted from their grandparents. They play a hard game of “Schlemiel,” first getting Cinderella (or Cinderarse, as they called her) thoroughly messed up, and then apologizing and obtaining her forgiveness. Godmother. She is the most interesting of all the characters. What were her motives in outfitting Cinderella for the ball? Why did she not just have a nice talk with her and comfort her, instead of sending her out into all the glitter? The situation was that stepmother and stepsisters were gone for the evening, and only Cinderella and her father were left in the house. Why was godmother so anxious to get rid of Cinderella? What was going on “back at the ranch,” where godmother and father were alone for the evening, while everyone else was away at the ball? Her telling Cinderella not to stay after midnight was a good way to insure that she would be then first to get home. This avoided the risk of the other females finding godmother there, since Cinderella’s approach gave her waring to take off in good time. From a cynical point of view, the whole story sounds like a setup to allow father and godmother to spend the evening together. #RandolphHarris 3 of 28

The Prince. The Prince was a jerk, and no doubt got what he deserved after he was married. He lets the girl get away twice in a row without getting any clue as to her identity. Then, he is unable to catch her in a foot race, even though she is limping along with only one shoe. Instead of finding her himself, he sends a friend to do the job for him. Finally, he marries this girl of dubious upbringing and questionable family less than a week after he meets her. Despite the superficial impression that he wins her, all this points to a loser’s script. 7. The King. The King has an eye for the girls, and is a bit of a blabbermouth. Nor does he protect his son from his own impulsiveness. 8. The Gentleman. He is the straightest of all the characters in the story. Instead of being sloppy or supercilious, and laughing at Cinderella, as her sisters were going to do, he gets his job done with a fine sense of justice. Nor does he run off with Cinderella himself, as a lesser man might have done, but brings her safely to his employer. He is honest, efficient, and conscientious. 9. The two lords, of course, are patsies to allow themselves to be married off to two very uncool girls, whom they know nothing about, having only met them on their wedding day. The important thing is that all these characters can be picked out in real life. Here, for example, is the story of Cinderella. #RandolphHarris 4 of 28

Ella’s parents got divorced when she was little, and she stayed with her mother. Shortly afterward, her father remarried. He had two daughters by his second wife, who was jealous of Ella when she came to visit, and begrudged the money her father sent for her support. A few years later, her mother also remarried, and then Ella had to go live with her father because her mother and new stepfather were more interested in drinking than in taking care of her. Ella was not at all happy in her new home because her stepmother made it clear that she did not like her, and her father did little to protect her. She always had the last choice in everything, and her sisters teased her. She grew up very shy and had few dates when she was a teenager, while her sister led an active social life in which she was not invited to share. Ella had one advantage, however. She knew something the other did not know. Her father had a mistress, a divorcee named Linda, with a majestic and ultra exclusive BMW Speed Top automobile, who wore very expensive hippie-type necklaces. Ella and Linda secretly became good friends, and used to have long talks about their problems with dad. In fact, Linda gave Ella advice about many different things, and was like a godmother to her. She was particularly concerned because Ella did not have much of a social life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 28

One afternoon Linda said: “Your mother is away, and your sisters are going out on dates, so why do you not go out, too? It is no fun sitting at home all by yourself. I will lend you my car and some clothes, and you can go to the Rock-and-Roll Ballroom where there are lots of boys you can meet. Come over to my place about six and we will eat and I will fix you up.” Ella figured Linda and her father were going to spend the evening together, and she agreed. Linda thought Ella looked very nice all dressed up. “Do not hurry back,” she said, as she handed Ella the keys to her beautiful car. At the dance, Ella met a nice boy named Roland, and started to go out with him. However, a poor guitar-player friend of his was much more interested in Ella than he was, and soon she was going out secretly with Prince, the guitar-player. She did not want Prince to call at her house because she knew her mother would not approve of his unkempt appearance, so Roland would come pick her up with his date and then they would meet Prince and the four of them would go somewhere together. Meanwhile, her father and stepmother and sisters thought she was dating Roland, and Ella and he had lots of fun over that. Prince was not poor. He came from a well-to-do family and had a good education, but he wanted to make it on his own as an entertainer. He began to get more and more famous. #RandolphHarris 6 of 28

After he was well known, he and Ella decided to tell her family the real story before they found out from someone else. It came as a complete surprise to her siters, who adored Prince’s records, and they were very jealous when Ella announced that she had won such a rich prize for a husband. However, she did not bear them any grudge for their ill-treatment, and often got them free tickets to Prince’s concerts. She even introduced them to some of his square friends. As followers of Jesus Christ, we should live peacefully with others who do not share our values or accept the teachings upon which they are based. In the concluding days of His mortal ministry, Jesus gave His disciples what He called, “a new commandment,” reports John 13.34. Repeated three times, that commandment was simple but difficult: “Love one another, as I have loved you,” reports John 15.12. The teaching to love one another had been a central teaching of the Savior’s ministry. One which Cinderella did master. The second great commandment was “love thy neighbour as thyself,” reports Matthew 22.39. Jesus even taught, “Love your enemies,” reports Matthew 5.44. However, the commandment to love others as He had loved His flock was to His disciples—and is to us—a challenge that was unique. Love is the very essence of the gospel and Jesus Christ is our Exemplar. His life was a legacy of love. Cinderella certain understood the gospel and practiced it in her life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 28

Why is it so difficult to have Christlike love for one another? It is difficult because we must live among those who do not share our beliefs and values and covenant obligations. In His great Intercessory Prayer, offered just before His Crucifixion, Jesus Christ prayed for His followers: “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” reports John 17.14. Then, to the Father He pleaded, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” reports John 17.15. We are to live in the World but not be of the world. We must live in the world because, as Jesus Christ taught in a parable, His kingdom is ” like leaven,” whose function is to raise the whole mass by its influence (see Luke 13.21; Matthew 13.33; see also 1 Corinthians 5.6-8). If they associate only with those who share their values, His followers cannot do that. However, the important message is not to be influenced by people whose way are not godly. Therefore, if you are not strong enough to withstand peer pressure, stay away from those who might lead you astray from the ways of the Lord. If we love Him, the Savior taught the we will Keep his commandments (see John14.15). Even as we seek to be meek and to avoid contention, we must not compromise or dilute out commitment to the truths we understand. We must not surrender our positions or our values. Jesus Christ and the covenants we have made inevitably cast us as combatants in the eternal contest between truth and error. There is no middle ground in that contest. #RandolphHarris 8 of 28

Hegel affirms that in so far as death is the common ground of man and animal, it is by accepting death and even by inviting it that the former differentiates himself from the latter. At the heart of this primordial struggle for recognition, man is thus identified with violent death. The mystic slogan “Die and become what you are” is taken up once more by Hegel, But, “Become what you are” gives place to “Become what you so far are not.” This primitive and passionate desire for recognition, which is confused with the will to exist, can be satisfied only by a recognition of all by all, which will mark the termination of history. The existence that Hegelian consciousness seeks to obtain is born in the hard-won glory of collective approval. It is not beside the point to note that, in the thought which will inspire our revolutions, the supreme good does not coincide with existence, but with an arbitrary facsimile. The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power. It is, in its essence, imperialist. We are far from the gentle savage of the eighteenth century and from the Social Contact. In the sound and fury of the passing centuries, each separate consciousness, to ensure its own existence, must henceforth desire the death of others. Moreover, this relentless tragedy is absurd, since, in the event of one consciousness being bestowed, the victorious consciousness is not recognized as such, in that it cannot be victorious in the eyes of something that no longer exists. In fact, it is there the philosophy of appearances reaches its limits. #RandolphHarris 9 of 28

No human reality would therefore have been engendered, if, thanks to a propensity that can be considered fortunate for Hegel’s system, there had not existed, from the beginning of time, two kinds of consciousness, one of which has not the courage to renounce life and is therefore willing to recognize the other kind of consciousness without being recognized itself in return. It consents, in short, to being considered as an object. This type of consciousness, which, to preserve its animal existence, renounces independent life, is the consciousness of the slave. The type of consciousness which by being recognized achieves independence is that of the master. They are distinguished one from the other at the moment when they clash and when one submits to the other. The dilemma at this stage is not to be free or to die, but to kill or to enslave. This dilemma will resound throughout the course of history, though at this moment its absurdity has not yet been resolved. In contrast, a core relationship is contact between two individuals who express and reveal themselves to each other openly and honestly, appreciating and accepting each other as they truly are and trusting in the abilities and goodwill of each other. A core relationship can be longstanding—a husband and wife, a parent and child, close friends, business partners—or it can be briefer and more casual—a clerk at the supermarket and a customer, co-workers, parents of children who play together. Any possible encounter between two people can have the characteristic of a core relationship. #RandolphHarris 10 of 28

Have you ever met someone, had a conversation, then moved on, probably never to see that person again, but you felt good about yourself and about that person? Felt that you had received something wonderful and had given something wonderful? If so, you have had a core-to-core relationship, however brief, with another individual. One or both of you revealed yourselves honestly and openly, appreciated and accepted each other as you truly are, and trusted each other’s abilities and goodwill. By comparison, superficial relationships can be found as readily in longstanding contacts—such as with husbands and wives, parents, and children—as in more casual interactions. The characteristics of superficial relationships are unawareness, control, deception, distrust, criticism, and petty competitiveness. Manipulators take a lot of time and expend a great deal of energy on superficial relationships. They cultivate them, make them happen. And when they go home at night, they are too tired even to be civil to those they should be closest to, their families. We believe that core-to-core relationships do not always take time and energy, but that they do take the willingness to be aware, honest, trusting, accepting, and appreciative. The enhancement of self and others in such relationships is beyond measure. When all is said and done, the home is the ideal forum for teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The scripture speak of the role of parents—that it is their duty to teach their children, “the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 68.25. #RandolphHarris 11 of 28

The success of the gospel cannot—and should not—be attributed solely to its undeniable capacity to titillate the imagination. It also signals the existence of a widespread need for information, an understandable and almost insatiable public curiosity about the varies of expression, a subject, which recently is being locked away in a shroud by public censorship. With the public abandonment of prescribed rules based on a theological concept of virtue and sin, everyone is now forced to seek out the gospel or to fashion a private set of moral and ethical values which, it is hoped, will sustain him over the years. If unable to achieve an effectively life by basing his conduct on the commandments of the Word, he must sift through words by millions in newspapers, magazines, and books, seeking some insight into his own nature. He must learn to distinguish fact from fiction, blueprint from daydream, reason from rationalization. This is difficult to do when society no longer honors God and His choice land of America. This brings into play a fundamental paradox. The pleasure of being alive depends to a considerable degree on an individual’s ability to include both the unknown and to have the security of the known to give him the confidence he needs to try something different than he has attempted in the past. We want precise understanding and exact description of every science and do not abandon our demand even when the more delicate matter of a method of spiritual illumination is in question. “The humility which can say, “I do not know” is a first step to the confidence which can day, “This is a fact.” If they begin to question, deeply question, then even the simplest statement brings them into difficulties whose existence, previously, they had never suspected. #RandolphHarris 12 of 28

Men learn best because they concentrate best in a quiet, unruffled atmosphere. This requires a secluded site, tall buildings, and high enclosing walls, peaceful laws, and tree-bordered walks. Most Western people dislike abstract generalities: They prefer concrete facts. They believe in first appearances rather than in second views. Against such a tendency truth must struggle bravely for survival. If Westerns were more balanced, they would realize they could keep their facts and their first views—nobody asks them to disregard the practical and the apparent—but they could also have the abstract and the long view, thus achieving balance, and with it, truth. The dept and width of his research must equal the depth and width of his reflection. Where are the answers to men’s questions? He must elicit them for himself one by one. There is little harm in putting into the mind ideas above its level. At worst, they may bore it, but at best they might expand it. Quite often, when a truth or a judgment is carried to extremes, it loses some, or much, or all its validity. If we have sought for truth in directions which have yielded negative results, it is time to take a new direction. A man whose cultural rise has depended upon self-education alone deserves praise and admiration for his effort. Nevertheless, he would have done better to seek also a formal education. This would complete and elevate what he has learnt by himself by providing him with higher standards, competent instruction, and well-tested knowledge or by affording personal help with questions, uncertainty, and problems. #RandolphHarris 13 of 28

He must be frank with himself and know what he does not understand and what he does and not accept mere opinion for solid fact. It may be hard, a rough stony obstructed path, for the common man to find his way into philosophy, but the tension is well worthwhile. He must expand his mind, but there are moments of relief, of joyful discovery, or encouraging perception. Before you can get clear expression of meaning, you must get a clear mind. You must nurture a tendency toward sharply defined thoughts and exactitude of understanding. You must give definite shape to the inchoate ideas which float through your mind like clouds, and thus arrive at complete possession of your subject. Wherever they are shown to be out of harmony with the facts of life, ee will not consciously refuse to readjust his views. If such questions have never entered their minds, it is hardly likely that the answers completely will. Correct thinking may annihilate superstitions and uncover deceptions, but unbalanced thinking may create new ones. The mind needs a long training in truthful thinking into which the ego does not obtrude itself before the hidden reality begins to respond. This uprooting of old familiar but fallacious beliefs discourages some person but encourages others. #RandolphHarris 14 of 28

Public safety and emergency preparedness is essential. The award-winning Sacramento Fire Department must have sufficient trained personnel available to respond to a fire at any hour of the day, every day of the year. Staffing issues affect all fire departments—career departments, combination departments, and other essential departments. It is especially important to ensure that enough responders are always available, particularly during the day. In the past, when many worked in or near the communities where they lived the fire department’s response time was not an issue. Today, however, many people have super commutes and work longer hours, so the number of people available to respond during the day may be limited. Many fire departments, however, have full-time fire fighters during daytime hours to ensure sufficient personnel are available to respond to an incident. In 1992, Congress created the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to lead a nationwide effort to remember the U.S. fallen fire fighters. In the years since then, this foundation has expanded its programs to sponsor the annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend, offer support programs for family members and other survivors, award scholarships to fire service members’ survivors, and work to prevent line-of-duty injuries and deaths. Safety is the highest priority. Ensuring a safe working environment for the members of the fire service is undertaken by several professional organizations and various regulation, standards, and procedures. #RandolphHarris 15 of 28

Effective organization requires both leaders and followers. In the Sacramento Fire Department, fast and effective decision making requires leadership and teamwork. When fighting a fire, there can be no hesitation about who is leading and who is following. Rank takes away guesswork about who oversees what, so leaders and other team members can do their jobs. In fact, it is there the philosophy of appearances reaches its limits. The disciplined exercise of the Sacramento Fire Department’s exercise of customers and courtesies is a clear indicator of the morale and leadership of that organization. It also indicates their ability to function under stress as a team of professionals bound by a warrior ethos and mutual respect. “Being with the Sacramento Fire Department has changed my life. I’m a little more committed to helping people. It’s good being in the fire department, it makes you more responsible. I really never thought I would be a family person, but I am now.  A lot has to do with the fire department. You’re always training, so your mind is steadily working. It’s not like a dead end. You’ve always got to move forward and take one day at a time. If an accident happens, we have to respond to it, make sure everybody is all right, and do everything we can. If people are upset, you try to calm them down. The job makes you take charge of things. #RandolphHarris 16 of 28

“This one guy I know was disturbed because his lieutenant had gotten killed, and he felt guilty about it. He asked me what did I do to get over it. My heart went out to him. I told him I really did not do anything, but my family was behind me, and the guys that I work with were behind me 100 percent. But I got the impression that his guys kind of dogged him and blamed him, like he didn’t wait and he didn’t do enough to save the lieutenant. He was totally upset. I told him that in my case I felt I did everything I could, but there wasn’t much I could have done. So I told him he shouldn’t take that weight on himself. When the guys you work with don’t believe in you, that could be a problem. Being a survivor, I don’t know if God was telling me to ‘change your life, young man.’ I have changed, I’ve mellowed. He’s been excellent to me, God has. That’s why I’m here now.” The ordinary man makes a hasty judgement of the matter, or follows his personal wishes, but truth requires a deep well-considered examination. If the capacity to comprehend philosophy is not inborn, then it can be slowly acquired by anyone who thinks it worth the effort. If so many seekers do not find truth pure and unadulterated, but only its impure adulterated variety, it is because their way has been blocked by self-serving partisans interested only in triumph for their own group, position, or argument, their own prejudice, attraction, or bias. Discovery of truth requires not only a willingness to take in the facts which serve one side of a case, but also to refrain from ignoring or belittling those which serve the other side. It is not in an atmosphere of favouritism or hostility that truth appears, but in a deep calm bereft of egoistic urges. This is why some sort of preparation for it is necessary, some kind of training. #RandolphHarris 17 of 28

If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way because if you hit someone and they happen to die, you could be charged with manslaughter. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 18 of 28

California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income.  In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all of our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. #RandolphHarris 19 of 28

Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 20 of 28

The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 21 of 28

The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 22 of 28

Additionally, with inflation rates at an all-time high, American being in an unofficial recession for about a decade, all insurance in California is becoming unaffordable. State Farm has received an approval for an emergency rate increase, which was approved by the California Insurance Commissioner, to stabilize the market and protect policyholders. Starting 1 June 2025, homeowners will see an average of 17 percent increase, rental dwellings will see an increase of 38 percent, and Condo owners will see a rate increase of 15 percents. These rate increases are due to the distressed caused by the recent wildfires, which accumulated over $7 billion in claims. Furthermore, in 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1107, also known as the Protection California Drivers Act, into law which increases the minimum auto lability limits for bodily injury to $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. Senate Bill 1107 also increased the minimum liability limits for property damage to $15,000 per accident and the DMV deposit for uninsured drivers to $75,000. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that drivers with existing policies with lower limits will renew at the new minimum limits on or after January 1, 2025, and insurance premiums could increase by as much as 54 percent. America is in a state of crisis right now because of mismanagement by democrats. With the median household income in Sacramento County being $88,724 and a 4-bedroom 2.5-bathroom Cresleigh home costing $798,059, how are people able to afford homes? Because an $800,000 home with a one percent downpayment of $8,000, 30-year fixed loan at 4.176 percent interest comes with a monthly mortgage payment of $4,241. #RandolphHarris 23 of 28

The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. Prices in Sacramento County are actually rivaling the Bay Area, and the Bay Aera is so expensive because they have more higher paying jobs and is a tourist destination. And with the State of California being in a budget deficit of $12 billion, Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care at a cost to taxpayers of $3 billion annually, while cutting vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless, and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by eliminating environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. #RandolphHarris 24 of 28

In fact, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallon a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. However, it has become a public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. The beach has been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive and has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. #RandolphHarris 25 of 28

Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease, and he recently secured $10 trillion in investments. Additionally, in May of 2025m the United States of America collected a record $22.3 billion in tariff revenue. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever.  And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 26 of 28

When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards on pollution. American companies must be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 27 of 28

As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 28 of 28

The Winchester Mystery House

Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.

For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

We wish to express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)  https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Why Choose Harris?

Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/

The Ultimate Driving Machine

BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.

BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/

Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers

Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html

Cresleigh Bluffs at Plumas Ranch

Plumas Lake, CA | from the mid $400’s

Now Selling!

Welcome to Cresleigh Bluffs, the newest home community in Plumas Ranch!


Nestled in the heart of Plumas Lake, CA, Cresleigh Bluffs offers three distinct single story floor plans designed with efficiency and practicality in mind.

Home design is made easy with expertly crafted design packages exclusive to Cresleigh Bluffs. Choose from a variety of packages made to fit your taste and budget. Contact our dedicated sales associates to learn more. PlumasRanch@cresleigh.com

Sign up for our interest list today to stay up to date on community information. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-bluffs-at-plumas-ranch/move-in-ready-homesite-2/

The Little Glass Slipper—To Thyself be Enough!

According to Dr. Freud, “The founder of civilization was the first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone.” For the script analyst, the story of Cinderella has everything. It includes a large variety of interlocking scripts, innumerable nooks, and crannies where delightful new discoveries can be made, and millions of real-life counterparts for every role. Cinderella in this country usually means, “The Little Glass Slipper.” This is a translation of the French version of Charles Samber in 1729. In his dedication to the Countess of Granville, Mr. Samber makes it clear that he understands very well the scripty influence of such stories. He says that Plato “desires Children might suck in those Fables with their Milk, and recommends it to Nurses to teach them to ‘em.” Perrault’s Morals to the tale of “Cinderilla” were, of course, Parental Precepts. “But that thing, which we call good grace, exceeds by far a handsome face; its charms by far surpass the other, and this was what her good Godmother bestow’d on Cinderella fair, whom she instructed with such care, and gave her such a graceful mien, that she became thereby a Queen.” The last three lines describe the Parental pattern which Cinderella received from her godmother. If the child is ever to amount to anything, Perrault also draws a second moral, which stresses the need for permission. #RandolphHarris 1 of 33

“A great advantage ‘tis, no doubt, to man, to have wit, courage, birth, good sense and brain…but none of these rich graces from above, in your advancement in the world will prove of any use, if Godsires make delay, or Godmothers your merit to display.” Mr. Samber’s translation was slightly changed by Andre Lang for his Blue Fairy Book, which is one of the most popular fairytale books read to and by children, and that is whence they get their first picture of Cinderella. In this kindly French version, Cinderella forgives her two stepsisters, and finds rich husbands for them. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are also very popular in this country, contains the German version, called “Ashenputtel.” This is a bloody tale ending with the sisters’ eyes being systematically pecked out by doves. Cinderella stories are found in many other nations. With this background, we are ready to consider a Martian view of Cinderella, patterned after Perrault, which is the version most English-speaking children have in mind, and discuss the various scripts involved, many of which will be easily recognizable in real life. What Martian and real life tell us, as in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, is something very important: what happens to the characters after the book story ends. #RandolphHarris 2 of 33

According to Perrault, there was once upon a time a gentleman who married for his second wife a widow, the proudest and most haughty woman that ever was known. (No doubt, as is usually the case with such brides, she was also frigid.) She had two daughters who were exactly like her in all things. He also had a daughter by his first wife who was good and sweet, which she took from her mother, who was the best creature in the world. As soon as the wedding was over, the stepmother began to treat Cinderella most cruelly. She could not bear the qualities of this pretty girl because they made her own daughters so much the more hated and despised. The poor girl bore all patiently, and dared not tell her father, who would have rattled her off, for his wife governed him entirely. When the girl had done her work, she used to go into the chimney corner and sit down upon the cinders, so they called her Cinderarse, or, more politely, Cinderella. Now it happened that the King’s son gave a ball, and invited all persons of quality to it, including the two sisters. Cinderella helped them to do their hair and get dressed. Meanwhile, they teased her because she was not invited, and she agreed that such a glamorous occasion was not for the likes of her. After they left, she started to cry. However, her fairy godmother came along and promised that she should go, too. She instructed Cinderella: “Go into the garden and bring me a pumpkin.” She then scooped out the pumpkin and turned it into a golden coach. There were mice for horses, a rat for a fat jolly coachman with fine whiskers, and lizards for footmen. Cinderella got a fine dress to wear, and jewels, and little glass slippers. Her godmother warned her not to stay at the ball after the clock struck twelve. #RandolphHarris 3 of 33

Cinderella made a sensation at the dance. The Prince gave her the most honorable place, and the King himself, old as he was, could not help looking at her, and whispering about her to the Queen. At a quarter to twelve, she left. When her sisters came home, she pretended that she had been asleep. They told her about the beautiful strange Princess. Cinderella smiled, and said: “Oh, she must be very handsome indeed. How I would like to see her! Lend me some of your clothes, so I can go there tomorrow night.” However, they said they would not lend their clothes to such a Cinderarse, and Cinderella was glad, because she would not have known what to do if they had agreed. The next night, Cinderella was having such a good time that she forgot to leave until the clock started to strike twelve. As soon as she heard it, she jumped up and fled, nimble as a deer. The Prince chased her, but he could not catch hold of her, even though in her haste, she lost one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up very carefully. A few days later, the Prince caused it to be proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, that he would marry her whose foot this slipper would just fit. He sent men around to try the slipper on all the women in the kingdom. After the two sisters had tried to thrust their feet into it without success, Cinderella, who knew the slipper, said laughing: “Let me try it.” Her sisters laughed, too, and began to make fun of her. #RandolphHarris 4 of 33

The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper said that he had orders to let every body do so. He told Cinderella to sit down, and found that the slipper fitted her as if it had been made of wax. The astonishment her two sisters were in was very great; but much greater when Cinderella pulled out of her pocket the other slipper and put it upon her foot. Then her godmother came in, and with her wand changed Cinderella’s clothes into rich and magnificent garments. When they saw that she was the beautiful Princess, the two sisters threw themselves at her feet and said: “Sorry,” whereupon Cinderella embraced them and forgave them. Then she was taken to the Prince, and a few days later, her married her. Cinderella gave her two sisters lodgings in the palace, and married them the same day to two great lords of the court. As with Cinderella’s forgiveness to her sisters, this is an actualizing relationship. An actualizing relationship between two people takes place when one person relates to another core-to-core. By “core,” we mean the one’s inner range of potentials. This inner core may also be called one’s real self. Through expressing a variety of passive and active potentials, such as caring and assertiveness, actualizers open paths for the spontaneous “understanding” of themselves and others. Very good friends, as we know, are said to communicate sensitivity to each other. This is contact. If their relationship is core-to-core, a wife may communicate with her husband with as little as a smile or a sigh. #RandolphHarris 5 of 33

Cinderella, being a good Mormon, knew her sisters did not understand what they were doing and that she should show them the love of God. To forgive is a divine attribute. It is to pardon or excuse someone from blame for an offense or misdeed. The scriptures refer to forgives in two ways. The Lord commands us to repent of our sins and seek His forgiveness. He also commands us to forgive those who offend or hurt us. “The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression,” reports Numbers 14.18. Contact is shown as the touching of two inner cores of actualizing potentials, which we call core-to-core contact. In contrast, manipulation is shown as distant interaction between the outer rings, the surface of each personality. This we call role-to-role manipulation. The manipulative relationship is not intimate, but distant. Contact is a form of loving or trusting another person in a relationship of closeness. Manipulation is a relationship of distance, a withdrawal to less personal or intense forms of communication. Core-to-core contact is based on the truth of each self, whereas role-to-role manipulation is based to some extent on deceit and mistrust. Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders provides an extreme example of role-to-role manipulation. It seems that Moll, the impoverished heroine of the novel, wishes to contact a man of wealth, any man of wealth, for the purpose of matrimony. To attract such a man, she plays, of course, the role of a wealthy young woman. It seems that a young man, currently out of funds, wishes to contact a woman of wealth, also for the purpose of matrimony. He plays the role of a wealthy young man. You guessed it. They find each other and marry, each certain the other can pay the debts they incurred in creating their wealthy roles. Each is justifiably disillusioned. #RandolphHarris 6 of 33

Core-to-core contact is not a permanent state. Indeed, it is a fragile thing to be developed at each meeting between two individuals. It develops when at least one of the persons can be freely expressive rather than calculatedly impressive—honestly expressive of self rather than deceitful. It also facilitated when at least one of the parties is willing to really listen to the other person and to respond to the other person’s statements and feelings accurately. In a way, being real is catching. If you can present yourself wholly, with both your strengths and weaknesses, with both your assertiveness and lovability, you will in time be able to break down the guardedness, defensiveness, and deceit of the other person. You will have begun to create the fertile ground for a truly core-to-core relationship. However, a core-to-core relationship is not easy to sustain. Manipulators fear vulnerability, fear being exposed or judged. They are afraid that sustained contact with another will reveal a dimension of themselves that they have so far denied or refused to see. True personal contact involves emotional risk. However, the manipulator chooses to avoid risk by attempting to control those around him or her. Consider the case of a father and his fourteen-year-old daughter, discussing whether she can go on a chaperoned, co-ed weekend camping trip. “Now way will I allow you to go!” says the father. “I won’t permit it!” “But, Dad, I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks,” his daughter says. #RandolphHarris 7 of 33

“Absolutely not!” repeats the father, exerting dominance. He avoids saying what is really on his mind: his concern that the girl will experiment with pleasures of the flesh during the weekend. In his zeal to be a good, competent father, which he secretly fears he is not, he resorts to controlling rather than contacting. His wife, having overhead the argument and intuitively sensing his unspoken concern, later tells him, “You needn’t worry that she’ll get into trouble. If you would let yourself be closer to her, you’d know that; you’d know the kind young woman she is.” At this point, the conversation might open a vital and valuable discussion between the parents, for this father truly wants to be closer to his daughter. The trouble is that he is afraid of expressing that sense of caring. There can be many reasons for his fear. Perhaps—to cite one possibility—he was so controlled as a child by his mother that he draws away from the risk of closeness with any woman, or with women in general. All the man can do, then, is turn the charge back upon his wife, shouting: “You’re the one who’s not close to her!” Rather than get into a core-to-core conversation about his feelings, which might reveal his fear of caring for his daughter, the father changes the topic. To avoid a discussion of feelings, he diverts the conversation to a safely “intellectual” topic: “Her school grades are not that great, you know. She could use this weekend to stay home and study.” Instead of trying to see the situation from the girl’s point of view, the man denies his core-caring as he might express it were he able to be in contact with her. #RandolphHarris 8 of 33

Consider the bank loan officer. She felt so insecure about her competence that she hid behind a persona of officiousness and super-efficiency. No one could get close to her. If they thought they would have to deal with her and her cold, controlled manner, customers, no matter how desperate for a loan, would delay applying. One day, however, she felt so overwhelmed with paperwork and so isolated that she uttered the unspeakable to a customer: “I can’t seem to get on top of anything today. I’ll probably be here until midnight, trying to catch up.” To her surprise, the customer smiled at her and said, “Gee. I know what you mean. I’ve been feeling that way, too. Only it’s going to take me about a year!” The barrier dropped, and the two women were able to chat amiably. Risking being herself brought the loan officers an unexpected response. Instead of being judged, as she had feared, she was understood. And her customers felt understood as well. A short, but real, core-to-core contact was made. Manipulators must control everything—themselves, others, even conversations. They choose the topics. They evaluate rather than appreciate. They try to convince others, rather than exchange ideas with others. Or they limit themselves to safe “small talk.” In many people, generalities such as the weather might be a prelude to contact, but in manipulators, often, they are only a means of avoiding personal contact. #RandolphHarris 9 of 33

There are several ways to seek to control communication. By denying that he is communicating. “I think you should apologize to him, but it is not my place to tell you.” (He has said it but at the same time denies that he has.) By denying the message itself. “Oh, forget it; I guess it wasn’t important.” Or she insists the message is misunderstood: “You did not get the point.” By denying that the message is communicated to another person. “I was just talking to myself…just thinking out loud…” By denying the context or situation. “You always make fun of men” (referring to the past)/ “You will think that I am silly” (referring to the future). In both examples, he avoids dealing with the person now. Peer Gynt may serve as a famous illustration from literature. He does not make much of his existing assets, his great intelligence, the spirit of adventure, and vitality. However, he is proud of the one thing he is not, “of being himself,” Actually, he is—in his mind—not himself but his idealized self, with unlimited “freedom” and unlimited powers. (He has lifted his boundless egocentricity to the dignity of a life philosophy with his maxim “To thyself be true,” which—as Ibsen points out—is a glorification of “To thyself be enough.” There are many Peer Gynts among our patients, anxious to preserve their illustrations of being a saint, a mastermind, of having absolute poise, etcetera; and they feel as if they would lose their “individuality” if they budged an inch from these estimates of themselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 33

Imagination itself may become of supreme value, regardless of the use to which it is put, since it allows its bearer to look down with contempt on the drab and pedestrian people who are concerned with truth. The patient of course would not say “truth” but would speak in vague terms of “reality.” One patient for instance, whose claims were so grandiose as to expect the world to be at his service, at first took a clear stand toward this claim, calling it absurd and even degrading. However, the next day he had retrieved his pride: the claims were now a “magnificent mental creation.” The true meaning of irrational claims had submerged and pride in imagination was triumphant. More frequently, pride is not specifically attached to imagination but to all mental processes: intellect, reason, and will power as well. The infinite powers the neurotic ascribes to himself are, after all, powers of the mind. No wonder, then, that he is fascinated by it and proud of it. The idealized image is a product of his imagination. However, this is not something that is created overnight. Incessant work of intellect and imagination, most of it unconscious, goes into maintaining the private fictious world through rationalizations, justifications, externalizations, reconciling irreconcilables—in short, through finding ways to make things appear different from what they are. The more a person is alienated from himself, the more his mind becomes a supreme reality. (“A person has no existence apart from my thought: I have no existence apart from my thought.”) Like the Lady of Shalott, he cannot see the reality directly but only through a mirror. #RandolphHarris 11 of 33

More accurately: he sees in the mirror only his thoughts about the world and himself. This is why the pride in intellect, or rather in the supremacy of the mind, is not restricted to those engaged in intellectual pursuits but is a regular occurrence in all neurosis. Pride also is invested in faculties and prerogatives to which the neurotic feels entitled. Thus, he may be proud of an illusive invulnerability which, on the physical plane, means never to incur illness or any physical damage and, on the psychic side never to feel hurt. Another may be proud of good luck, of being the “darling of the gods.” It is a matter of pride then not to fall ill in a malaria district, to win in gambling, or to have fair weather for an excursion. It is indeed a matter of pride in all neuroses to asset one’s claims effectively. If they can manipulate others into lending them money, running their errands, giving them medical treatment without charge, those who feel entitled to get something for nothing, feel proud of being granted “snow flake rights.” If a protégé of their does not follow a piece of advice immediately, or if he does something on his own initiative without having asked their advice first, those feeling entitled to manage other people’s lives, experience is as a blow to their pride. Still, some feel entitled to exoneration as soon as they indicate that they are in some distress. If they can elicit sympathy and forgiveness and they feel offended, if the other person remains critical, they are proud. #RandolphHarris 12 of 33

The neurotic’s pride in measuring up to this inner dictate may on the surface look more substantial, but it is in fact just as rickety as other kinds of pride since it is inevitably interwoven with pretenses. The mother who is proud of being the perfect mother usually is so in her imagination only. The person who is proud of his unique honesty may not tell obvious lies but is usually pervaded by unconscious and semiconscious dishonesties. Those who are proud of their unselfishness may not be openly demanding but will impose upon others through their helplessness and suffering, besides mistaking their taboos on shoulds themselves may have a merely subjective merit in that they serve neurotic purposes but no objective value. Thus, for instance, the neurotic purposes but no objective value. Thus, for instance, the neurotic may be proud of not asking and not accepting any help even though it would be more sensible to do so—a problem well known in social work. Some may be proud of driving a hard bargain, others of never bargaining at all—depending on whether they must always be on the winning side or should never be out for their own advantage. Lastly, it may be merely the very loftiness and severity of the compulsive standards that are invested with pride. The fact of knowing “the good” and “the evil” makes them godlike, just as the serpent promised it would to Adam and Eve. #RandolphHarris 13 of 33

A neurotic person’s very high standards make him feel that he is a moral wonder to be proud of, regardless of how he is and behaves. He may have recognized in analysis his ravaging hunger for prestige, his poor sense of truth, his vindictiveness; but all of that does not make him any humbler or make him feel any less a superior moral being. To him, these actual flaws do not count. His pride is not in being moral, but in knowing how he should be. Even though temporarily, he may have recognized the futility of his self-reproaches, or even at times, have been terrified at their viciousness, he still may not relent in his demands on self. If he suffers, what does it matter, after all? Is not his suffering another proof of his superior moral sensibilities? Hence, to sustain this pride seems worth the price. It is not enough to be a collector of other men’s ideas. He must also be an original generator of his own. He must go into the pure silence to think independently, to analyze problems and consider them for himself, and to pray for enlightenment. Unless one is prepared to part with a wrong habit of thinking, unless one is willing to eradicate all limited conceptions which blur clear-sightedness, unless, in short, one is willing to reorient the mental outlook completely, it will never be possible to penetrate the world illusion. The student of philosophy must enforce in his own mind the clear difference between views based on wishful thinking, and views based on adequate knowledge and comprehensive understanding. #RandolphHarris 14 of 33

Before it can search for truth, the mind must be set free: otherwise, it merely seeks either the confirmation or rejection of previously held ideas, systems, opinions, and creeds. It is not enough to express your willingness to learn. You must also be willing to unlearn. It his possible, and must become his object, to develop a completely impartial intellect. It is one thing to have caught a vague notion in the mind, and another to think it out and make it intelligible. The philosophical student, having thoroughly scrutinized the bases of his outlook and attitude, reveals his wisdom and humility by confessing ignorance where he cannot claim knowledge. It is then always possible for him to learn something here. However, the undeveloped or undisciplined mind is not ashamed to make a pretense of knowledge where, in fact, there is none. It is too much to expect that his mind can understand what is quite beyond it; but when repeated, the effort tends to “stretch” the mind’s capacity. It is not enough to acknowledge his misjudgments. He ought also to enquire into the defective qualities which led him into making them. The father he travels from egocentric existence, the clearer and straighter will be his thinking. If the man who utters it is only half-literate, if his statement is ungrammatical, his words are mispronounced, and his voice stutters irritatingly, be willing to accept a truth. If the truth is expressed impeccably and enriched by a fine culture, it is usually more enjoyable, however. #RandolphHarris 15 of 33

Animals, according to Hegel, have an immediate knowledge of the exterior world, a perception of the self, but not the knowledge of self, which distinguishes man. The latter is only really born now when he becomes aware of himself as a rational being. Therefore, his essential characteristic is self-consciousness. Consciousness of self, to be affirmed, must distinguish itself from what it is not. Man is a creature who, to affirm his existence and his difference, denies. What distinguishes consciousness of self from the world of nature is not the simple act of contemplation by which it identifies itself with the exterior world and finds oblivion, but the desire it can feel regarding the world. This desire re-establishes its identity when it demonstrates that the exterior world consists of what it does not possess, but which nevertheless exists, and of what it would like to exist but which no longer does. Consciousness of self is, therefore, of necessity, desire. However, to exist, it must be satisfied, and it can only be satisfied by the gratification of its desire. It, therefore, acts to gratify itself and, in so doing, it denies and suppresses its means of gratification. It is the epitome of negation. To act is to destroy to give birth to the spiritual reality of consciousness. However, to destroy an object unconsciously, as meat is destroyed, for example, in the act of eating, is a purely animal activity. To consumer is not yet to become conscious. #RandolphHarris 16 of 33

Desire for consciousness must be directed toward something other than unconscious nature. The only thing in the world that is distinct from nature is, precisely, self-consciousness. Therefore, desire must be centered upon another form of desire; self-consciousness must be gratified by another form of self-consciousness. If he limits himself to subsisting like an animal, man is not recognized—and does not recognize himself—as a man. He must be acknowledged by other men. All consciousness is, basically, the desire to be recognized and proclaimed as such by other consciousnesses. It is others who beget us. Only in association do we receive a human value, as distinct from an animal. In that the supreme value for the animal is the preservation of life, consciousness should raise itself above the level of that instinct, to achieve human value. It should be capable of risking its life. To be recognized by another consciousness, man should be ready to risk his life and to accept the chance of death. Fundamental human relations are thus relations of pure prestige, a perpetual struggle, to the death, for recognition of one human being by another. The man who puts up a barrier of egoistic prejudices or superiority complexes cannot hope to penetrate the secret circle of truth-knowing. Only he who is ready, tentatively, to shift his intellectual standpoint for that of another is at all likely to be admitted into the sacred treasure house of wisdom. We must now shelve a single fundamental but awkward question. The sanctity of truth is inviolable. #RandolphHarris 17 of 33

The award-winning Sacramento Fire Department must be able to identify hazards and understand how to rectify those hazards. Many fire departments offer to conduct fire and life safety surveys in private dwellings. These surveys identify fire and life safety hazards and provide the occupants with recommendations on how to make their home safer. During a fire and life safety, the Sacramento Fire Department is on the lookout for potential fire hazards and nonfire safety hazards. Poisoning, slip and fall hazards, drownings, burns, and toppling furniture are all common causes of injuries in the home. Simple precautions can prevent some of these emergencies: Pools must be properly enclosed. Furniture, televisions, and appliances must be properly secured to prevent tip overs. Medicines and chemicals must be stored properly where children and pets cannot access them. Stairs and balconies should have handrails and guards. Domestic hot water temperature should not exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius. During the survey, fire fighters will point out hazards, explain the reasons for making recommendations, and answer any questions the occupants may have. They always look for fire protection equipment, such as smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and fire extinguishers. Fire fighters will make sure that there are working smoke alarms on each floor, in the corridor outside each sleeping area, and in each bedroom. Some fire departments install one or more some alarms at no cost in any dwelling that lacks this important protection. Their goal is to educate the occupant about common fire hazards. #RandolphHarris 18 of 33

The Sacramento Fire Department will stress the importance of keeping ignition sources away from combustible materials and keeping bedroom doors closed to limit fire growth and spread. It is especially important for them to discuss the risk of children playing with lighters and matches, leaving food cooking on the stove unattended, and storing combustibles such as towels, potholders, and cooking oils too close to the stove. Many fires have resulted from someone inadvertently turning on the wrong burner and igniting something that was left on the stovetop. Everything in the kitchen should be equipped with an ABC-rated fire extinguisher. If the room contains a fireplace, a wood stove, or a portable heater, ensure that no combustible materials are stored nearby. A fireplace should have a screen to keep sparks and hot embers from escaping. If solid fuels are used, the chimney or flue pipe should be professionally inspected at least once a year. It is also important for home occupants to keep up good housekeeping and to clear junk out of garages, basements, and storage areas. Furnaces and water heaters that operate with an open flame are often located in a basement or garage; they can ignite flammable materials that are stored too close to them. Storage of gasoline and other flammable substances is a major concern because an open flame or pilot light can easily ignite flammable vapors. Gasoline and other flammable liquids should be stored only in approved containers and in outside storage areas or outbuildings. Propane tanks, such as those used in gas grills, should also be store outside or in outbuildings. Small quantities of flammable and combustible liquids (such as paint, thinners, varnishes, and cleaning fluids) should be stored in closed metal containers away from heat sources. Oily or greasy rags should also be stored in closed metal containers. It is recommended that homeowners maintain fully charged fire extinguishers in basements and garages. #RandolphHarris 19 of 33

Furthermore, it is generally not safe to smoke cigarettes or marijuana in the garage. Secondhand smoke exposure: Garages, even with the door open, may not be adequately ventilated. Secondhand smoke contains harmful chemicals that can affect anyone present, including children. Carbon monoxide risk: Burning cigarettes produce carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless, and potentially deadly gas. While a single cigarette is unlikely to cause immediate danger, smoking repeatedly or for prolonged periods in a poorly ventilated space could lead to carbon monoxide buildup. Fire hazard: Garages often contain flammable materials like gasoline, paint, solvents, and chemicals. Smoking increases the risk of igniting these materials, leading to a fire. Smoking materials (like marijuana or cigarettes) are a leading cause of residential fires. And it is absolutely not safe to store gasoline without a cap in your garage because gasoline is highly flammable: both the liquid and its vapors are easily ignited. Vapors are dangerous: gasoline vapors are heavier than air and can travel along the floor, accumulating in low areas like a garage. Evaporation and deterioration: leaving the container open allows the gasoline to evaporate, losing its volatile components and becoming less effective. It also increases the risk of water contamination. Health hazards: exposure to gasoline fumes can also pose health risks. #RandolphHarris 20 of 33

The Four Tenets of the Warrior Ethos: always place the mission first. Never accept defeat. Never quit. Never leave a fallen member of the fire department. While all citizens hold beliefs and values that bring our nation together, the Sacramento fire fighters, paramedics, and EMTs must take action to protect the nation. The four tenets of the Warrior Ethos provide the motivation for that action, motivation built on comradeship that the Warrior Ethos creates. Because of that comradeship, members of the Sacramento Fire Department sever for each other, as well as for the nation and for their beliefs. Time and again you see that members of the Sacramento Fire Department would rather die than let their community and the nation down. It is their job as leaders to ensure that their unit has the final ingredients necessary for victory. They train and lead their team to become a competent, confident, flexible, and adaptable team—a team imbued with the Warrior Ethos. The Warrior Ethos is the Sacramento Fire Department’s commitment to overcome all obstacles. It reflects a selfless dedication to the nation, mission, unit, and their fellow team members. They develop and maintain this attitude through discipline, rigorous training, learning, and embodying the award-winning values of the Sacramento Fire Department, and recognizing that as a fire fighter, paramedic, or EMT, they represent the future of Sacramento’s proud heritage. “As to the danger, I believe that when it’s your time to go, it’s your time go. I’m not looking forward to the day I’m gone, but just lived day to day. I don’t dwell on the possibility of this happening, because it breaks your concentration. If you start worrying about every job you go on, you clutter your mind and you cloud your thinking. #RandolphHarris 21 of 33

You just have to say, ‘I’m going in there to do my job, and I’m going from this point to that point, and I have these things to do.’ You have to keep your priorities in order, you know what you have to do, you know what the goal is, and just work to complete that goal. Then afterwards you can say, ‘That building was shaky, or that fire was really coming up our backs.’ I mean, you can think about the dangers afterwards, but you can’t let that stuff cloud your thinking. You have to understand that they are there, and you’ve got to be aware of them. You can’t get careless or reckless, you have to be aware of what’s going on around you at all times. But don’t be so aware of them that you’re going to worry anout something that really isn’t something to worry about. You just go in, do what you have to do, and you’re done. I live one day at a time, stay in top health, and do it as it comes along. Firefighting is a business like any other business, it’s a career for me. The only thing to do now is to eventually move up the ladder, advancing to different positions—lieutenant, captain, whatever—set my wheels in motion for my future. I could stay a firefighter with the Sacramento Fire Department for my whole career, there’s nothing wrong with that. I could be content with that. I’ll plan my future as I move along.” If it is not to degenerate into mere mental effervescence, thinking must move at every step with rigid rationality. #RandolphHarris 22 of 33

If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency situation and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 23 of 33

California is the third most expensive state in the nation. A single person making an income above $100,000 is now consider low-income in five counties in California. This distinction now applies to individuals living in Santa Cruze, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. In 37 percent of counties, a family of four living on a six-figure income is now considered low-income.  In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, but wants to cut medical for anyone who has assets over $2,000 and the state has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all of our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. #RandolphHarris 24 of 33

Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, Gavin Newsom has criminalized homelessness and actually started arresting people without homes, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 25 of 33

The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 26 of 33

The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 27 of 33

Additionally, with inflation rates at an all-time high, American being in an unofficial recession for about a decade, all insurance in California is becoming unaffordable. State Farm has received an approval for an emergency rate increase, which was approved by the California Insurance Commissioner, to stabilize the market and protect policyholders. Starting 1 June 2025, homeowners will see an average of 17 percent increase, rental dwellings will see an increase of 38 percent, and Condo owners will see a rate increase of 15 percent. These rate increases are due to the distressed caused by the recent wildfires, which accumulated over $7 billion in claims. Furthermore, in 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1107, also known as the Protection California Drivers Act, into law which increases the minimum auto lability limits for bodily injury to $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. Senate Bill 1107 also increased the minimum liability limits for property damage to $15,000 per accident and the DMV deposit for uninsured drivers to $75,000. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that drivers with existing policies with lower limits will renew at the new minimum limits on or after January 1, 2025, and insurance premiums could increase by as much as 54 percent. America is in a state of crisis right now because of mismanagement by democrats. With the median household income in Sacramento County being $88,724 and a 4-bedroom 2.5-bathroom Cresleigh home costing $798,059, how are people able to afford homes? Because an $800,000 home with a one percent downpayment of $8,000, 30-year fixed loan at 4.176 percent interest comes with a monthly mortgage payment of $4,241. #RandolphHarris 28 of 33

The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. Prices in Sacramento County are actually rivaling the Bay Area, and the Bay Aera is so expensive because they have more higher paying jobs and is a tourist destination. And with the State of California being in a budget deficit of $12 billion, Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care at a cost to taxpayers of $3 billion annually, while cutting vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless, and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by eliminating environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. #RandolphHarris 29 of 33

In fact, Mexico has been causing one of America’s worst environmental disasters. Fifty million gallon a day of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage, and trash flow from Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County daily. This toxic waste has been turning up on Imperial Beach, and is causing the miles of white sands to become polluted and the ocean breeze to smell of poop, which has been sickening residents and wildlife and costing San Diego millions in the form of lost tourism and health problems. The problem has been going on for more than a century. However, it has become a public health crisis as the population of Tijuana has drastically increased, in recent years, and the waste treatment plants have no longer usable. The beach has been closed for more than three years, and evidence suggests that even breathing the air may be harmful, as toxic particles in the water can become airborne. Yet, even though Gavin Newsom has been governor for six years, he has not rushed into action to stop this very preventable environmental disaster. Why? Because he is not getting kickbacks from China and Mexico, not being gifted mansions and cars, and he cannot tax the struggling California taxpayers to clean up this mess. Simply, it is not profitable for him. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. He has criminalized poverty, increased taxes and insurance rates so high that people are struggling to survive and has given billions of taxpayer dollars away to illegal immigrants and protected them from law enforcement, while arresting law abiding Americans because they cannot afford to pay rent or mortgage and the homeless shelters are unsafe, overcrowded and have restrictions on who is allowed inside. Wars have been started over governments who tax citizens without representation. Taxation without representation is what led to the American Revolution. If Gavin Newsom is not stopped, next he will euthanize the poor and sterilize the disabled. This monster is unfit to be governor and must never be allowed to be President of America! Stop Gavin Newsom now! Save California and impeach this unreasonable man. #RandolphHarris 30 of 33

Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease, and he recently secured $10 trillion in investments. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever.  And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 31 of 33

When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 32 of 33

As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 33 of 33

The Winchester Mystery House

Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Heiress Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.

For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

We wish to express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)  https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Why Choose Harris?

Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/

The Ultimate Driving Machine

BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.

BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/

Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers

Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html

Pulte Homes Ascent at Montelena

11977 Cobble Brook Drive, Rancho Cordova, California 95742

Now selling in Rancho Cordova, at Ascent at Montelena. This family-friendly community is near major employers like Sutter Health and the State of California. Located in the Sacramento Valley, residents enjoy Northern California at its best.

These two-story single-family homes feature Life Tested® floor plans, smart home features, energy-efficient construction, and modern architecture. Prices start at $625,990 and up for a single family home, with 2,526-2,973 square feet. https://www.pulte.com/homes/california/sacramento/rancho-cordova/ascent-at-montelena-210916

BMW i8 and Left No Crumbs!

Some people claim that no one cares about your success because they really want to see the journey of how you got there. However, I do not believe that is true. When you are down and struggling and stuck with a bunch of rejections, bad news, failure, and debt, do you notice that no one is around, people avoid you, and no one offers help. Yet, when you are successful and doing well, you have all of the friends in the world. More than you will ever need. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain. Many people will suffer in personal struggles, while others will suffer as they watch their loved ones in pain. To gain strength in our struggles, we must have an optimistic perspective of the principles in the plan of salvation. We must realize that we have a personal Savior whom we can trust and turn to in our times of need. We must also learn and live in the principles that the Lord has given to receive the strength needed during our struggles. In the Grand Counsil in Heaven, the decision was made to “make an earth whereon these may dwell,” reports Abraham 3.24. This earth is the place to prove ourselves worthy and to prepare to return to the presence of the Lord. He explained, “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them,” reports Abraham 3.25. #RandolphHarris 1 of 29

Before we can achieve the creative awareness, we need to overcome the manipulations in our lives, we must learn to identify, experience, and honestly express real feelings, not counterfeit emotions. Some of the manipulator’s repertoire of counterfeit emotions follow. Substituting one emotion for another. Many of us express anger when we pretend anger instead of express hurt. Thus, we hear the lady tears welling in her eyes, cry out: “You make me so mad!” She is not made at all; she is hurt. Her body does not like. Using the same counterfeit pattern, we express anger when we are really afraid. “You make me so angry when you forget to take your medicine,” a young woman screams at her ill mother. Her anger hides her fear. She is worried about her mother health. If she does not take her medicine, she might die. Feelings as a delayed reaction. Here we meet the person whose pace is so slow that he says: “I was mad at you last week.” Last week? It took him a week to find out? Not really. He knew how he felt last week, but he was afraid to express it then for fear he would be attacked in return. A favorite poly of the withdrawing and avoiding manipulator is to hide his or her real emotion at the time it is felt to avoid contact with another. The delayed reaction also provides an advantage to the manipulator: time to prepare a surprise attack. It is just another way to control rather than to make contact with another. #RandolphHarris 2 of 29

Making a virtue of not having normal feelings, or pretending you do not. Most of us know some couple who boast that they have never had a fight. Our response would have to be “Tommyrot!” Normal people who have any contact at all with each other must rub each other the wrong way at times. Of course, they have fights. They have them because they have normal feelings, as much as they would like to appear virtuously free of them. Confusing your feelings with facts. You say to someone, “You are stupid!” Your statement is not a fact at all, since you have not actually measured that person’s intelligence. If you said instead, “I feel that you are stupid,” then you would be stating a fact about your feelings, not a fact about the other individual’s intelligence. Expressing your feelings as you are poised for flight. Such a person may let true feelings slip out, but is ready to run the instant anyone reacts to them. A sign of immaturity, such timidity stunts one’s emotional growth and the development of relationships. With all his strenuous efforts toward perfection and with all his belief in perfection attained, the neurotic does not gain what he most desperately needs: self-confidence and self-respect. Even though godlike in his imagination, he still lacks the earthy self-confidence of a simple shepherd. The great positions to which he may rise, the fame he may acquire, will render him arrogant but will not bring him inner security. #RandolphHarris 3 of 29

He still feels at bottom unwanted, is easily hurt, and needs incessant confirmation of his value. He may feel strong and significant as long as he wields power and influence and is supported by praise and deference. However, all of these feelings of elation collapse easily when, in a strange environment, this support is lacking; when he incurs failure; or when he is by himself. The kingdom of haven does not come through external gestures. Let us survey what happened to self-confidence in the course of a neurotic development. Apparently, for self-confidence to grow, the child needs help from the outside. He needs warmth, feeling welcome, care, protection, an atmosphere of confidence, encouragement in his activities, constructive discipline. These factors given, he will develop “basic confidence,” to use a well-chosen term of Marie Rasey’s which includes both confidence in others and in self. Instead, a combination of injurious influences prevents a child’s healthy growth. However, there are some reasons which render it specifically difficult for him to arrive at a proper self-evaluation. A blind adoration may inflate his feeling of significance. He may feel wanted, liked, and appreciated not for what he is but merely for satisfying his parents’ needs for adoration, prestige, or power. A rigid regime of perfectionist standards may evoke in him a feeling of inferiority for not measures up to such demands. Misdemeanors or bad marks at school may be severely reprimanded, while good behavior or good marks are taken for granted. Move toward autonomy or independence may be ridiculed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 29

All these factors, in addition to a general lack of genuine warmth and interest, give him the feeling of being unloved and unworthy—or at any rate of not being worth anything unless he is something he is more. Moreover, the neurotic development, initiated by the early unfavorable constellation, weakens him at the core of his being. He becomes alienated from himself and divided. His self-idealization is an attempt to remedy the damage done by lifting himself in his mind above the crude reality of himself and others. And, as the stories of the devil’s pact, he gets all the glory in imagination and sometimes in reality. However, instead of solid self-confidence, he gets a glittering gift of most questionable value: neurotic pride. The two feel and look so much alike that an understandable confusion is created in most minds about their differences. A definition in an ole edition of Webster, for instance, says that pride is self-esteem, based either on real or imagined merits. The distinction is made between real and imagined merits, but they are both called “self-esteem,” as if this difference did not greatly matter. The confusion also develops through the fact that most patients regard self-confidence as a mysterious quality arising from nowhere but most desire to have. It is but logical then that they expect the analyst to instill it into them in some way or other. Which always reminds me of a cartoon in which a rabbit and a mouse got an injection of courage; they then grew give times their ordinary size, were bold and full of indomitable fighting spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 29

What the patients do not know—and are anxious indeed not to realize—is the strict cause-and-effect relation between existing personal assets and the feeling of self-confidence. This relation is not any less definite than the way in which the financial status of a person depends upon his properties, his savings, or his earning capacity. If these factors are satisfactory, a person will have a feeling or economic security. Or, to take another example, the fisherman’s confidence rests on such concrete factors as his boat being in good shape, his nets being mended, his knowledge of weather and water conditions, and his muscular strength. What are regarded as personal assets vary to some degree with the culture in which we live. For Wester civilization, they include such qualities or attributes as having autonomous convictions and acting upon them, having the self-reliance that stems from tapping our own resources, assuming responsibility for ourselves, taking a realistic appraisal of our assets, liabilities and limitations, having strength and directness of feelings, and having the capacity for establishing and cultivating good human relations. The well-functioning of these factors shows subjectively in a feeling of self-confidence. To the extent that they are impaired, self-confidence will be shaky. Healthy pride likewise is based on substantial attributes. It may be a warranted high regard for special achievements, such as feeling proud of a deed of moral courage or of a job well done. Or it may be a more comprehensive feeling of our own value, a quiet feeling of dignity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 29

Once upon a time there was a man named George, who was equally celebrated for slaying dragons and for fertilizing barren women. He wandered around the countryside as a completely free spirit—or so it seemed. Cantering through the meadows on a summer’s day, he saw columns of smoke and forks of flame shooting upward in the distance. As he approached the scene, he heard a terrible roaring, mingled with the shrill screams of a maiden in distress. “Aha!” he cried, couching his lance. “This is my third dragon and maiden in less than a week. I will slay the dragon, and no doubt my bravery will be richly rewarded.” A moment later, he cried to the dragon: “Avast, lubber!” and to the maiden: “Have no fear!” The dragon drew back and began to paw the ground in anticipation not only of a double meal, but also of what he loved best, a good fight. The maiden, whose name was Ursula, threw her arms out and cried: “My hero! I am saved.” She was delighted, not only in anticipation of being saved and watching a good fight, but also (since she was not really a maiden) at the prospect of showing gratitude to her rescuer. George and the dragon backed off from each other, preparing for the charge, whole Ursula cheered them both on. At the moment, another figure appeared on the scene, richly accoutered with a silver-mounted saddle and fat alforjas filled with gold coins. #RandolphHarris 7 of 29

“Hey boy!” cried the new arrival. George turned and said in surprise: “Father! How nice to see you!” He turned his back on the dragon, dismounted from his horse, and went to kiss his father’s foot. A lively conversation ensured, with George saying, “Yes, father. Certainly, father. Whatever you say, father.” Neither Ursula nor the dragon could hear father’s side of the conversation, but it soon became apparent that it was going to go on indefinitely. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” said Ursula, stamping her foot in disgust. “Some hero! As soon as his old man appears, he’s right over there bowing and scraping, and he has no time for poor little me.” “You said it,” said the dragon. “This is going to go on forever.” So, he turned off his flame thrower and rolled over and fell asleep. However, eventually, the old man rode off, and George was ready to return to the fray. He couched his lance again, and waited for the dragon to get up and charge and Ursula to cheer him on. Instead, Ursula said: “Jerk!” and walked away. The dragon got to his feet and said: “Crumb!” and he, too, walked away. When George saw that, he yelled: “Hey dad!” and galloped after his father. Ursula and the dragon both turned at the same moment and both shouted after him: “Too bad he’s so old, or I would take him on instead of you.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 29

When I was young, several times it happened that I was “in love” and enjoying serenity and peace. Then I noticed frictions building, and I left before they could be damaging to either of us. This seemed to me best. I did not wish to be harmful to the other or to myself. I was called “callous.” It did not seem that way to me. However, when I had been called “callous” often enough, I thought I was, and stayed—with damage to all of us, including the children, which it took years to heal, and some of it is not entirely clearly up yet. The “loose morals” and “irresponsibility” (about work, with employers) of Hawaiians, Navajos, and Hopis seem to me to make better sense, to be more human, because they are less damaging to other humans and to my humanity. That we “criticize our neighbors for what are our own faults,” could be easily misunderstood. When my neighbor chains his dog on a short leash and blows smoke in the dog’s eyes, I do not like this, but it is not something that I do or even have ever wanted to do. However, when I have “held” someone insistently so that I could tell this individual what one did not wish to hear, is that different? It is not the act itself, but what the act is doing. As a child, when my mother told a “story” to someone who had come to the door, I wished she would not do it. I was “criticizing her”—to use grown-up language. However, I did not yet know this way to think about it. I did not blame her. I wished she would not do it because it opened up a path to me that I did not wish to go, and if she had done this, I would not have known it was there. #RandolphHarris 9 of 29

I knew only honesty until something else was shown to me. It was a very strong factor in my close identification with my father that he was honest. This I liked. I felt steady. He also made it possible for me to be honest with him—when I was small. Later on, he did not. If I want to be told the truth, I must be willing to accept it. And if I wish to have love, I must be willing to receive it. Now, when I feel critical of other people, I often notice that what I am really feeling is, “Please do not do that. It is what I do not want to do, and I so easily fall into it when you are doing it.” This is certainly true of stereotyped chatter about world affairs, gossip, literature, anecdotes, and such, and people who are forever planning, who never live now. Other people’s intellect/ego calls out mine, and then I do not like me. I would like there to be an irreligious order where I could go at times, to be with others who wish to work out the same corrections in themselves, to strengthen me in making mine. However, it can also be simply and directly true that what I criticize in others may be something that I do, too. It is certainly wise to look into myself and check—and also ask others whether it seems to them that I have this fault. It may seem to me that I am only “reminding” someone else (being helpful) while to others it may seem that I am “always nagging.” Then I may understand better how someone else’s nagging (as it seems to me) appears to them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 29

Because people do not feel their inward divinity, they often deny it. In ancient and even medieval times, they were satisfied that it did exist because their simplicity, their uncultivated intellects, created no barriers to this feeling or to faith in it on the authority of tradition and their prophets. We must understand the inevitability of their present skepticism and prove the fact of the Soul as logically, as evidentially as possible. Yet to offer intellectual proof alone is not enough, although a truly excellent step forward. We must also show them how to get the experience of verification for themselves. Skepticism makes conditions which require that truth be presented in a rational form and argued out. Otherwise, the intellectual reactions to it will not be fair and just to its value. The value of metaphysical skepticism is to overcome mental inertia, to liberate us from strict and rigid doctrines, and to teach us tolerance. It frees us to search for higher truths and nobler values. They may try to escape from their doubts, perhaps by stifling them, perhaps by ignoring their very existence, perhaps by going to the guru and getting his reassurance again. This course may succeed for a time, even for a lifetime. However, it is not conducive to their true welfare. There are two ways open to a skeptic. One is to seek the actual experience of transcending intellectual proof of it. The first is a hard and long way; the second short and easy. #RandolphHarris 11 of 29

Just as the very presence of suffering starts a search for its relief, so does the very existence of doubt cause a search for truth to begin. We must begin by suspecting the data furnished by our five senses. We must learn that appearances are dubious, that they are not to be accepted without searching enquiry. Not only is he to question the dogma which orthodoxy hands him but even the doubts which skepticism offers instead of them. Those skeptics who reject the possibility of attaining truth are already stating something as truth and thereby refuting their own theory. Because there is no room in philosophic study for naivete or gullibility, those who suffer from these mental disabilities should first get cured. Where belief comes too easily, error may follow too quickly. To doubt everything and stop at that point, to assent to nothing but criticize every presentation, to meet all affirmative statements with the skeptic’s questions—this is the product of sharp intellect, blunt speech, and negative feeling. If a man is too suspicious of being deceived, he may err when truth is presented to him, and so miss the change of acquiring it. Balance is needed here as elsewhere. To bring one’s natural skepticism into a fine balance with the intellectual sympathy, these subjects demand is not an easy task, but he must try to do it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 29

We can accept nothing on trust as far as the quest of truth is concerned, although we can and needs must accept most things on trust, so far as the practical purposes of life are concerned. No arguments are capable of moving the absolute skeptic, for he does not look into its truth but only into tis weaker places. If you do not know whether God exists, do not fall into the error of denying that he does exist. It is an error because it is something which we do not know and to make such a positive statement has no justification. In the West, physical bulkiness, with large, prominent musculature, has long been a masculine ideal, and such robustness has been praised in popular magazines and valued by women in their men. Heavy musculature has been cultivated by violent exercise, vigorous calisthenics, and comparable feats of endurance. One function of such heaviness (not obesity, just heavy musculature) is to decrease sensitivity to pain and to enhance endurance. In the East, perhaps because patterns of nourishment have been different, slenderness is more the rule. The disciplines of Hatha yoga have been employed in India for several thousand years as a way to bring the body under more control, so that meditation and contemplation will not be obstructed by an insensitive, or a tense, uncomfortable body. Hatha yoga is one part of the Hindu religion and is one of the means of achieving the experience of “union of inner and outer,” or dissolving the ego and unifying awareness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 29

Since prehistoric times, controlled fire has been a source of comfort and warmth, but uncontrolled fire has brought death and destruction. Some of the most important lessons have been learned in the aftermath of tragic fires that resulted in devastating loss of life. The success of the Sacramento Fire Department depends on their ability to think critically and creatively and to communicate their intention and decision to others. The ability to communicate clearly—to get their intent and ideas across so that others understand their message and act on it—is one of the primary qualities of leadership. While you are a college student, your channels of communication include presentations and term papers. When you become a Sacramento Fire Fighter, Paramedic, or EMT, these channels will expand to include training meetings, briefings, and operation orders. The means to effective communication within the Sacramento Fire Department has required team members to develop their speaking and writing skills so that they are able to deliver any message to any audience effectively. They also keep in mind that communication also includes receiving messages from others through reading and listening. #RandolphHarris 14 of 29

Early in your career with the Sacramento Fire Department, much of your communication is direct. For example, coaching team members often requires communication that is one-on-one, immediate, and spoken. Later in your career with the Sacramento Fire Department, as your leadership responsibilities increase, you will inform subordinates and leaders through written orders, procedures, memos, and e-mail. This form of communication is indirect—it goes through other people or processes, is time-delayed, and written. As a member of the Sacramento Fire Department, your ability to communicate—to write, speak, and listen—affects your ability to inform, tech, coach, and motivate those around you. The good news is that you can develop these essential skills. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of these skills. In Sacramento Fire Department operations, as elsewhere, the inability to write and speak can have tremendous costs. History is replete with examples of misunderstood messages. For example, many Civil War scholars believe that victory at Gettysburg may have depended on how a subordinate interpreted Confederate GEN Robet E. Lee’s use of the word “practicable.” [On the first day of the battle of Gettysburg, Pa, Confederate attacks drove Union troops through the town to the top of Cemetery Hill, a half mile south.] The battle so far appeared to be another great Confederate victory. #RandolphHarris 15 of 29

However, General Lee could see that so long as the enemy held the high ground south of town, the battle was not over. He knew that the rest of the [Union] Army of the Potomac must be hurrying toward Gettysburg; his best chance to clinch the victory was to seize those hills and ridges before they arrived. So, General Lee gave Ewell discretionary orders to attack Cemetery Hill “if practicable.” Had Jackson still lived, he undoubtedly would have found it practicable. However, Edwell was not Jackson. Thinking the enemy position too strong, he did not attack—thereby creating one of the controversial “ifs” of Gettysburg that have echoed down the years. The Gettysburg vignette illustrates the parts of the communication process. General Lee was the sender. He sent the message: Attack Cemetery Hill. Ewell, the receiver, read the words, “if practicable,” decided that Union artillery on the hill made an attack not “practicable,” and did not attack. The words, “if practicable” made the message vague. (Who and what should define “if practicable”?) Obstacles to communication, such as this lack of clarity—along with other considerations, such as the demands of time, the ease of understanding the sender’s speech, the ability to read the sender’s handwriting, or the distractions in the area—make up what communications theorists call noise. Noise works against the clarity of communication. #RandolphHarris 16 of 29

Looking again at the vignette above, you find that General Lee never checked with Ewell to see if he understood General Lee’s intent: “What do you intend to do?” Ewell never checked to see if he understood General Lee’s intent: “What do you mean by ‘if practicable’?” The communication process included no feedback. Assume for a moment, as some historians do, that General Lee intended that Ewell attack Cemetery Hill immediately and decisively. (Those historians argue that General Lee was used to issuing such vague orders to the aggressive Stonewall Jackson, who had died a few months earlier.) Throwing Billy Yank off the hilltop might well have allowed General Lee to command the battlefield, perhaps even forcing the advancing Union armies to withdraw. That might have led to General Lee’s domination of southern Pennsylvania, choking off Washington from the North and ending the war on the Confederacy’s terms. If that were General Lee’s intent, the message failed. Ewell did not attack. The Union held onto the high ground and won the battle two days later—the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Effective communication occurs when the receiver’s perceived idea matches the sender’s intended idea. The receiver understands what the sender means, not just what the sender says or writes. And that is why people like to hire and work with people they know and trust. Those who have the required skills for the job. #RandolphHarris 17 of 29

“I wouldn’t do any other job, I enjoy this one too much. I’ve spent my life preparing for it, and it would be hard for me to find employment doing something else. I don’t think I’d want to, I wouldn’t be as happy. I’m with the Sacramento Fire Department for the long haul. I’m still single, and I’m still young. I’m hoping to advance here as far as I can go, but I still have this desire to work in a very heavy urban area, such as New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia. It’s just something that I need personally to do. Here in Sacramento, I’ve only been a captain a year, and I’m looking forward to getting my own company. I would like to have a shifting on the new rescue company that’s going to be put into service here in the near future. I like what I’m doing now because I work with different people all the time and ride different territories. It’s good experience. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in a battalion where most of the people are like me, interested from a very early age, want to do their best, very gung-ho. Professional, very professional. When the company looks bad, everybody looks bad, and people’s perception of us will go down. I try to be as professional as I can, because that’s the way it should be. We should be good.” When intelligence is applied so thoroughly as to yield a whole view and not merely a partial view of existence, when it is applied so persistently as to yield a steady insight into things rather than a sporadic one, when it is applied so detachedly as to be without regard to personal preconceptions, and when it is applied so calmly that feelings and passions cannot alter its direction, then and only then, does a man become truly reasonable and capable of intellectually ascertaining truth. #RandolphHarris 18 of 29

If you see a fire truck stopped in the street without the lights on, be very careful. Sometimes there is an emergency situation and you should not pass the fire truck. It might be a good idea to safely turn around and go another way. Sometimes fire fighters are getting back into their vehicle and if you pass the apparatus, you may collide with a firefighter who is on foot. Also, be sure to look at their signals, sometimes emergency vehicles are in motions, albeit, slowly, and drivers try to pass them, and this could lead to a dangerous situation. Also, if you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 19 of 29

As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. To help our firefighters, pleasure donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have all the resources they require. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America, out pacing Christianity. While American was once a nation of generations, there are still many indigenous people lift and others who have been here for generations. To protect America and make sure it will remain a land of the free and home of the brave, we must be patriotic and put Americans first. Democrats and Atheists would like nothing more than red blooded American warriors to become slaves in their own country. They would like nothing more than to close American schools so children can be forced into child labor again. It is not time to roll back, nor will it ever be to remove protection for American citizens. If you have not noticed, crime is spreading to communities that had never seen crime before. Homelessness is on the rise. #RandolphHarris 20 of 29

 In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom of Democratic controlled California, brags about being the world’s “fifth largest economy,” but it also facing a $12 billion deficit, looking to cut $747 million for state worker’s pay, pushing to keep medical insurance for illegal immigrants, and has the largest homeless population in the nation. If they are all officially counted, California has approximately 4 million homeless people. The highest home prices in the nation, the highest taxes and the most unfriendly business regulations known to man. The average home price in California is nearly $1,000,000.00 USD, while the average salary is $96,036.00, meaning that most Californians cannot even afford to buy a home. California is having an affordability crisis. In 2025, many people in California saw their bills increase by an estimated $500 a month. This includes things like food, automobile insurance, homeowner’s insurance, electricity. In fact, more than 3 million people in California are facing household hardship, and more than 300,000 of them are facing eviction soon. This comes at a time when California is having a shortage of affordable housing. This is caused by nearly half a century’s old laws that discourage homes sales and encourage higher rents. Meanwhile, China, where we are sending all of our jobs and money has more than 50 ghost cities. Ghost cities are regions will housing has been overdeveloped to the point that these places are uninhabited. Because California is so hostile towards people and businesses, more than 360 companies have fled the state since 2020. Businesses like Chevron, SpaceX, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard are amongst the names on that list. #RandolphHarris 21 of 29

Also, more than 500,000 people a year are abandoning California because it is too expensive to live in, crime is out of control, and they are losing their jobs due to companies relocating. More than 100 companies have announced layoffs in California for 2025. Intel is cutting 15,000 jobs, PayPal 2,500 and Meta has terminated 4,000 employees. The California crisis created by Democrats is driving up home prices and mortgages and rents all over the nation and the world, making living unaffordable for all, and advocates say the crisis is far from over. Accordingly, California has more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 22 of 29

The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 23 of 29

In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. As an incentive to buy American made cars, President Trump plans to made interest on loans for American cars tax deductible. Americans surely make superior products, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country.  Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. #RandolphHarris 24 of 29

Additionally, with inflation rates at an all-time high, American being in an unofficial recession for about a decade, all insurance in California is becoming unaffordable. State Farm has received an approval for an emergency rate increase, which was approved by the California Insurance Commissioner, to stabilize the market and protect policyholders. Starting 1 June 2025, homeowners will see an average of 17 percent increase, rental dwellings will see an increase of 38 percent, and Condo owners will see a rate increase of 15 percents. These rate increases are due to the distressed caused by the recent wildfires, which accumulated over $7 billion in claims. Furthermore, in 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1107, also known as the Protection California Drivers Act, into law which increases the minimum auto lability limits for bodily injury to $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. Senate Bill 1107 also increased the minimum liability limits for property damage to $15,000 per accident and the DMV deposit for uninsured drivers to $75,000. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that drivers with existing policies with lower limits will renew at the new minimum limits on or after January 1, 2025, and insurance premiums could increase by as much as 54 percent. America is in a state of crisis right now because of mismanagement by democrats. With the median household income in Sacramento County being $88,724 and a 4-bedroom 2.5-bathroom Cresleigh home costing $798,059, how are people able to afford homes? Because an $800,000 home with a one percent downpayment of $8,000, 30-year fixed loan at 4.176 percent interest comes with a monthly mortgage payment of $4,241. #RandolphHarris 25 of 29

The maximum percentage of your gross income that you should earmark for a monthly mortgage payment is calculated at 28 percent, and no more than 36 percent of your gross income to all debts, including mortgage. If you take 28 percent of the median household income per home in Sacramento County, homeowners can only afford a mortgage of $2,070.23 per month. And if you take 36 percent of their gross income to all debts, including mortgage, they should be devoting no more than $2,661.72 a month to these debts. Mortgage lenders must be using some kind of sorcery to get buyers into these expensive homes. To afford one of these homes using traditional guidelines, a household would need to gross $11,280.24 per month or $135,362.88 per year, but the median household in Sacramento County is grossing $7,393.67 or $88,724.00 and that typically means two to four people in the home are working and contributing to the mortgage. Prices in Sacramento County are actually rivaling the Bay Area, and the Bay Aera is so expensive because they have more higher paying jobs and is a tourist destination. And with the State of California being in a budget deficit of $12 billion, Governor Gavin Newsom Granted 700,000 illegal immigrants free health care at a cost to taxpayers of $3 billion annually, while cutting vital programs for veterans, school children, the disabled and the homeless, and is proposing to fast-track his plan to build a $20 billion water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by eliminating environmental reviews and limit avenues for legal challenges. Gavin Newsom only cares about the environment when his policies allow him to raise taxes and restrict freedoms. Gavin Newsom has been a total tyrant with no regard for taxpayers and does not have a mind for business and should be impeached as soon as possible. #RandolphHarris 26 of 29

Meanwhile, with President Trump, we are seeing crime rates sharply decrease, and he recently secured $10 trillion in investments. If elected president for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever.  And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 27 of 29

When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt.When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 28 of 29

As you can see, President Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” is exactly what America needs to save the country and the American people. And yes, diversity is important, so you can see why it is also important to preserve blonde hair and blue eyes as the people with these characteristics are becoming a minority in America. We must think before we can understand the soul’s existence; we must understand before we can realize it. The earliest beginnings of thought, as apart from instinct, when it was itself still but a lurking tendency, belong far back in primeval time. The human intellect as we find it today, so rich and developed an instrument for the consciousness of the ego, did not arrived at this fulness without a series of graduated stages. We have had plenty of scientific thinking, business thinking, and political thinking long enough, but we have had very little inspired thinking. That is the world’s need. The intellect is cradled in selfishness but runs the evolutionary track into reason where it will one day finish at the winning-post of selflessness. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. “Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war’s desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 29 of 29

The Winchester Mystery House

Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.

For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

We wish to express our gratitude to our families, ancestors, spirits, and friends and to our many associates and clients, whose lives touched our lives and whose ideas helped us to grow. We would also like to thank our employees and care takers for putting the technical ideas of this estate into conversational style, and we are, of course, extremely thank to all of our patrons for helping to keep the legacy of the Winchester Family alive. The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)  https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Why Choose Harris?

Hank Harris

Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/

The Ultimate Driving Machine

BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.

BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://www.brianharrisbmw.com/

Randolph Harris San Francisco Taxation & Mergers

Randy advises clients with regard to business transition, taxable and tax deferred mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, integrated tax planning, federal and state tax controversy resolution, and real estate transactions. https://www.jmbm.com/l-randolph-harris.html

You Cannot Make it Unless You Meet a Prince

The reasonable man adapts himself to the World; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the World to himself. This is same disregard for feasibility which pervades the drive for actualization. Many of these demands are of a kind which no human being could fulfill. They are plainly fantastic, although the person himself is not aware of it. He cannot help it, however, as soon as his expectations are exposed to the clear light of critical thinking. If anything, such an intellectual realization, however, usually does not usually change much. Let us say that a physician may have clearly realized that he cannot do intensive scientific work in addition to a nine-hour practice and an extensive social life; yet, after abortive attempts to cut down one or another activity, he keeps going at the same pace. His demands that limitations in time and energies should not exist for him are stronger than reason. Or take a more subtle illustration. At an analytic session, a patient was dejected. She had talked with a friend about the latter’s material problems, which were complicated. My patient knew the husband only from social situations. Yet, although she had been in analysis for several years and had enough understanding of the psychological intricacies involved in any relationship between two people to know better, she felt that she should have been able to tell her friend whether or not the marriage was tenable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 27

I told her that she expected something of herself which was impossible for anybody, and pointed out the multitude of questions to be clarified before one could even begin to have a more than dim impression of factors operating in the situation. It turned out then that she had been aware of most of the difficulties I had pointed out. However, she had still felt that she should have a kind of sixth sense penetrating all of them. Other demands on self may not be fantastic in themselves yet show a complete disregard for the conditions under which their analysis has little to do with intelligence. The reasoning power which these people have may, in fact, be used to obstruct progress. What counts are the emotional forces operating in the patients, their capacity to be straight and to assume responsibility for themselves. This expectation of easy success operates not only in reference to the length of the whole analysis, but equally so in regard to an individual insight gained. For instance, recognizing some of their neurotic claims seems to them the equivalent of having outgrown them altogether. That it requires patient work; that the claims will persist as long as the emotional necessities for having them are not changed—all of this they ignore. They believe that their intelligence should be a supreme moving power. Naturally, then, subsequent disappointment and discouragement are unavoidable. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27

In a similar way, a teacher may expect that, with her long experience in teaching, it should be easy for her to write a paper on a pedagogical subject. If the words do not flow from her pen, she feels utterly disgusted with herself. She ignored or discarded such relevant questions as: Has she something to say? Have her experiences crystallized to some useful formulations? And even if the answers are affirmative, a paper still means plain work in formulating and expressing thoughts. The inner dictates, exactly like political tyranny in a police state, operate with a supreme disregard for the person’s own psychic condition—for what he can feel or do as he is at present. One of the frequent shoulds, for instance, is that one should never feel hurt. As absolute (which is implied in the “never”) anyone would find this extremely hard to achieve. How many people have been, or are, so secure in themselves, so serene, as never to feel hurt? This could at best be an ideal toward which we might strive. To take such a project seriously must mean intense and patient work at our unconscious claims for defense, at our false pride—or, in short, at every factor in our personality that makes us vulnerable. However, the person who feels that he should never feel hurt does not have so concrete a program in mind. He simply issues an absolute order to himself, denying or overriding the fact of his existing vulnerability. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27

One patient revealed that she does not believe that she needs to experience a number of outside relationships to become happier about herself and things in general. However, after being with this particular person, she thought of nothing but sleeping with every man who appealed to her. She would walk down the street and look at everybody and wonder whether they are looking at her and what would they be like to sleep with. And somehow, just this one experience with a man, which was not terrific and did not make her terribly happy in regards to pleasures of the flesh, was enough to make her feel much more excited about being with people. It gave her a new feeling about life, which she never had with her husband because she was so dragged down and smudged. The pleasures of the flesh with this man made herself more like herself again, which contradicts what she initially said. This experience made her more aware of what she was as an individual as opposed to what her husband wanted her to be. She was living exactly according to the traditional image of the female, because her husband could not accept anything else. And one morning, she woke up and said, “I hate cleaning the house, and I want somebody to help me, and I’d like to sculpt in the middle of the night and paint in the middle of the night alone. And I want privacy and I want individuality and I want to be recognized for being a girl—not even so young any more!—with interests. I am human and an individual and also female, and I don’t want to be submerged in this housewife role.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 27

She deferred to her husband to the point where she almost forgot who she was or what she wanted or what she thought. However, it was her who decided that it was her role as a woman to please a man and therefore completely to submerge her own identity. This woman claimed that she was not going to hunt for relationships because she was more interested in quality than quantity. Although she wants to end up with a man and that she wants to be able to relate to a man, she admits does not know what she wants. It seems that she is mostly busy trying to remember all the things she wanted to feel and activate the things she wanted to do. She seems to be desperate for some kind of communication and relationships with men are just to serve a purpose and not to be permanent. This woman seems to be indulging herself in a Walter Mitty-type fantasy. This would be understandable under the circumstances since she has just begun to break out of her marriage and has used infidelity as a springboard. The danger lies in the possibility that this fantasy expresses a more fundamental aspect of her personality, an immaturity that is more Peter Pan than Walter Mitty—reflecting a wish not to grow up. When this is the case, a man or a woman uses extramarital affairs as a way of avoiding responsibility for the achievement of an enduring relationship. #RandolphHarris 5 of 27

 For an affair, after all, can be an opportunity for growth, a chance to experience more than simply pleasure of the flesh—a chance to work at a relationship so that it will sustain intimate passions and even intensify them. The alternative is to go from one partner to another, experiencing little beyond a temporary relief of frustration with pleasures of the flesh. This is clearly not her intention—intellectually, at least. The danger lies in the ease with which good intentions dissolve in the face of easy opportunities to act otherwise. Marriage is, among other things, a challenge to two individuals to find their identities by meeting the responsibilities that arise in the natural course of events, but affairs have no such built-in challenges. It is all too easy to continue an affair only to the point where it requires an individual to grow up, to accept some responsibility for his or her own development and to invest attention and feeling and energy in developing a long-rage relationship rather than concentrating it all on short-term pampering of the individual self. One way to integrate your authoritative personality and your marginalized personality is to accept the paradox that both exist in you and they are equal, like a two-party system in politics or a battery with positive and negative poles. A democracy collapses without opposing, equally strong political parties. #RandolphHarris 6 of 27

A battery will not work without the positive and negative electrical charges, and a healthy human being cannot function at the fully human level without both strength and weakness, love and anger. You have to listen to both sides, both your weak marginalized self and your authoritative self. By accepting and listen to both sides of yourself, the antagonistic poles become complementary. When both sides of ourselves are accepted equally, the power of integration occurs. Another way to integrate your authoritative self and your marginalized self is to express your feelings as accurately as possible. For example, if your husband is flirting, you may tell yourself that it does not really bother you. However, what do you really feel? When he interrupts your conversation to tell some waitress how terrific she looks, it is irritating, right? Do you tell him? No. Because you do not want to ruin your marriage with jealousy. Because you love him. Do you feel loving at those times? Not really, right? You actually feel inadequate. Are you inadequate? If you are not inadequate, then what are you? You are made at him, correct? It really hurts being ignored by the man you love. Those closer a woman comes to accurately expressing her feelings, the more she is able to: integrate her authoritative personality with her marginalized, and resolve the dichotomy that is robing her of her self-esteem and falsifying her communications. However, not all women are in a position to do this because of the dynamics of their relationship. #RandolphHarris 7 of 27

Some women had to manipulate a man into marrying them, others are dependent on his money, or maybe a combination of both. So, they have had to be subservient in their relationships to keep a man. Other are dating abusive men. For woman in this position, asserting her authority could be disastrous and even deadly. As Maslow says, in healthier people, dichotomies are resolved, and polarities disappear. Learning to listen to both your authoritative and marginalized personalities—giving them equal time, so to speak, and learning to accurately express your feelings—telling the truth, enables you to integrate your warring factions and transcend your manipulations. Often the hypnogogic experiences are just out of reach of what can be remembered unless they are immediately recorded, which action tends to disrupt the state. When I was suffering from infirmary for so long and living alone, I learned to “stay with” what was going on until I felt that I had it clear and firm, so that it seemed that it could not possibly escape me. However, when I made a movement, it was gone—utterly. Even shifting a leg or moving an arm or thinking a thought would break up this authoritative personality. Surely, this is not completely alien to anyone, when all have known arriving at something in our heads and then some movement or other interruption broke it up and we lost it? #RandolphHarris 8 of 27

In much the same way, some women are frightened at causing a rift in their relationships. However, for me, there was something else that annoyed me even more, in terms of wishing to present proof of what can go on in me that is intelligent beyond my usual intelligence: when I did manage to move my body without losing the knowing and wrote some notes—clues to the much more, which I hoped would serve as an anchor so that I could recapture the rest—I lost the rest. The clues by themselves read like nonsense—as a list of errands in one’s private code does to someone else. However, my clues were not to familiar things which could easily be related to each other by myself: they were clues to ideas, to explanations, to knowings and understandings so great that when I looked at my clues I thought, “It is like trying to put a woolly mammoth through a funnel. What comes through does not look much like a woolly mammoth.” Is this difficulty any more “mystic” or “irrational” than what these woman are going through? The mind is multidimensional to an impossible degree, whereas any description is limited to one dimension. Language can describe only one sequence of events at a time; if several occur simultaneously, language has to jump to and fro among the parallel lines, creating difficulties, if not confusion, for a listener. A further, almost insurmountable, complication is caused by the fact that mental events not only take place simultaneously along parallel lines, but influence each other profoundly. #RandolphHarris 9 of 27

It seems to me that this is why reliance on verbal communication gets us into so much trouble.  I can never say to you completely what is going on in me. When I use words, this sounds (and is) inadequate and unconvincing. If I then go on to express other parts of what is going on in me, it takes so long, and you become tired of listening. You want to know what is really going on in me, as if there were only one thing which could be real. And I, aware of what was going on in me, now notice that his has changed and throw in the towel. It is when my total organism receives from you, through non-verbal communication or some mixture of non-verbal and verbal communication, that I am closest to knowing what goes on in you. Little Pink Riding Hood was an orphan, and she used to sit in a clearing in the forest waiting for someone wo needed help to pass by. Sometimes she would wander down the paths in case anyone needed her in another part of the woods. She was very poor and could not offer very much, but whatever she had, she shared freely. She could hold thing when people needed an extra pair of hands, and her head was full of wise precepts which she had learned from her parents while they were still alive. She was also full of merry quips, and she liked to cheer up men who were scared of getting lost in the forest. In this way she made many friends. However, she was nearly always alone on weekends because then everybody went on picnics in the meadows and left her alone and a little scared herself to be in the forest. Sometimes they invited her to go along, but as she got older this happened less and less often. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27

She led a different life from Little Red Riding Hood, and in fact the one time they met, they did not get along well together. Little Red Riding Hoos was hurrying through the forest and passed by the clearing where Little Pink Riding Hood sat. She stopped to say Hello, and the two of them looked at each other for a minute, thinking they might become friends because they looked a little bit like each other except that one wore a pink cloak and the other a red one. “Where are you going?” asked Pink. “I’ve never seen you around here before.” “I’m taking my grandmother some sandwiches my mother made,” replied Red. “Oh, how nice,” said Pink. “I don’t have any mother.” “Furthermore,” said Red proudly, “when I get to my grandmother’s, I’m going to be eaten by a wolf—I think.” “Oh,” said Pink. “Well, a sandwich a day keeps the wolf away. And it’s a wise child that knows her own wolf when she meets him.” “I don’t think those merry quips are funny,” said Red. “So good-by.” “How stuck-up can you get?” asked Pink. However, Red had already departed. “She has no sense of humor,” thought Pink to herself, “but I think she needs help.” So Little Pink Riding Hood struck out into the forest to find a hunter who would protect Little Red Riding Hood from the wolf. Eventually she found one, an old friend of hers, and she told him that Little Red Riding Hood was in trouble. She followed him to the door of the hut where Red’s grandmother lived and saw everything that happened there: Little Red in bed with the wolf, the wolf trying to eat her, the hunter killing to wolf, and he and Little Red laughing and joking as they cut the wolf open and put stones in his belly. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27

However, Red did not even bother to thank Pink, which made Pink sad. And after it was all over, the hunter was better friends with Red than he had been with Pink, which made Pink even sadder. She was so sad that she began to eat peppy berries every day, and then she could not sleep, so she would eat sleepy berries at night. She was still a cute kid and still liked to help people, but sometimes she thought the best thing to do would be to take an overdose of sleepy berries. Clinical Analysis: Little Pink Riding Hood is an orphan, or has reason to feel like one. She is a cute kid, full of wise precepts and merry quips, but she leaves it to others to do the real thinking, organize things, and carry them through. She is conscientious and always ready to help people, and has many “friends” as a result, but somehow, she usually gets left out in the end. She then begins to drink and take stimulating drugs and sleeping pills, and often thinks of suicide. After she says Hello, she makes merry quips, but that is only to pass the time until she has a chance to ask: “Can I help you with anything?” Thus, she could have a “deep” relationship with a loser, but did not do so well with winners after the quips were over. Clinical Diagnosis: Chronic-depressive reaction.  Little Pink Riding Hood is a loser’s script, since everything she gets, she loses. It is a Goal-structured Cannot script, with the standard slogan: “You cannot make it unless you meet a Prince.” It is based on a “Never” plan, “Never ask for anything for yourself.” After she says Hello, she proves she is a helpful, cute kid. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27

Theological philosophy is based on logic. Scientific philosophy is based on reason. I uphold rationalism against intellectualism, the thinking power in man against the classifying power, the mind which evaluates thoughts against the mind which merely collects and describes them. So long as these two faculties of human kind—reason and imagination—are surrendered to its animal side, so long will they prevent the real human being from being born. The victories of reason are the only enduring ones. When we abdicate reason for unquestioning belief, when we sign away out birthright of private judgment to another man, we part with a precious possession. Reason is active in the developed man. He cannot stop it from demanding a cause for an effect. I took this use of the term “Reason” from  Aristotle, who made it higher than ordinary intellect, as well as creative, spiritual, eternal, and undying. The faculty of discrimination which we are to use in the pursuit of truth is not the intellect but the true Reason, which itself judges the intellect and rejects or confirms what it says. The conclusion to which reason comes can only have obligatory force upon the reason itself, not necessarily upon the whole integral being of man. We are finally to decide the problems of life by the integration of all our human nature and not merely by the judgment of a particular part of it. To make life a matter only of rational concepts about it is to reduce it, is to make a cold abstraction from it, and thus to fall into the fallacy of taking the part for the whole. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27

Metaphysical concepts may fully satisfy the demands of the totality of our being. They satisfy reason because they are the products of reason itself. However, man is more than a reasoning being. His integral structure demands the feeling and the fact as well as the concept of it, the feeling as well as the idea of it. So long as he knowns it only with a limited part of his being, only as empty of emotional content and divorced from physical experience, so long will it remain incompletely known, half-seized as it were. It is at this crucial point that the seek must realize the limitations of metaphysics and be ready to put aside as having fulfilled its particular purpose that which he has hitherto valued as a truth-path. It is impossible for the modern mind to encounter such experiences without seeking their explanation. And therefore, it is of little practical use for a master to tell his followers not to trouble their heads about the reason why such things happen or not to ask questions about the meanings and purpose of the World. Reasoning, in its highest sense, transcends mere logic and welcomes the alliance of meditation; out of their union comes wisdom, peace, balance, and so, blessing. The man whose chariot is driven by reason holding well the reins of his mind, reaches the end of his journey, the Supreme Pervading Spirit. Beyond the senses is the mind, and beyond mind is reason…beyond reason is the great Self. We may reject reason’s ideas about Divinity but in the end it is reason we have to rely upon to support the ideas which authority, tradition, emotion, or faith put forward. The agnostic, even the atheist, is a believer, too. Only he has more faith in the validity of reason than in the validity of intuition. Yet it is only the reason’s own vanity that asserts that its validity is a higher one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27

Just as we ought not muse emotion, so we ought not misuse reason. We may use reason to justify an intuition, provided we use it faithfully and not to flatter our prejudices or prepossessions. We shall then be as ready to examine critically searchingly and impartially our own conclusions as those of an opponent. Reason properly used will critically examine an emotion which is leading one astray, whereas improperly used it will uncritically defend such an emotion. It will not hesitate to puncture the ego’s inflated compliancy in the first case whereas it will support his complacency in the second one. How often is reason judgment pushed aside by mere physical appeal which obscures what is below the surface. A person’s body concept includes everything the person believes about the structure, capabilities, and limits of his or her body. As with any other concept—one’s concept of other people, of animals—the body concept may be accurate or inaccurate, complete or incomplete. An accurate body concept is important for achieving healthy personality. Accuracy of the body concept is achieved by all of the means employed to arrive at reality-tested knowledge in general: through observation, through continual verification of conclusions, and through contact with reliable authorities and sources of knowledge. However, many persons have been taught erroneous belief about diet, healthy, requirements, and the like. #RandolphHarris 15 of 27

Further, a person may become so alienated from the body (as part of the more general process of self-alienation) that the person loses the capacity to “listen” to the body, the capacity for somatic perception. Thus, some people may fail to recognize that inadequate diet, lack of exercise, insufficient rest, and excessive self-indulgence are gradually weakening their bodies. To the extent that a person has knowledge of the effects of various things on health, then to that extent the person’s body welfare is his or her own responsibility. In societies where medical knowledge is not available, people may have erroneous beliefs about the causes of health and of illness. Consequently, one may observe that entire sector of a population suffers from some chronic ailment that they all accept as “natural,” as part of the scheme of living, for instance, rickets or Tuberculosis. It is only from the standpoint of the contemporary scientific concept of the body that it becomes possible to make judgements about how healthy (or sick) and entire society might be. Some overprotected people grown up ignorant of the process of reproduction; a nineteen-year-old student of mine believed that the menstruation only occurred in virgins; once a woman engaged in pleasures of the flesh, she stopped menstruating. She could not discuss biological questions with her mother, and she was too embarrassed to talk about pleasures of the flesh with her better-informed girlfriends. Aging person with false pride may misjudge their strength and endanger their health through overexercise. However, just as persons may overestimate their bodies’ capacity, so may they underestimate it. We are all tougher than we have been led to believe. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27

It is extremely important to engage with and train community-based partners to improve the outcomes of at-risk populations. The Sacramento Fire Department seeks to guide practitioners, researchers, policy makers, funding organizations, and other stakeholders in understanding and using the available evidence to inform their decision making. It also seeks to demonstrate methodologies and other interested researchers to evaluate complex interventions. With the Sacramento Fire Department, they speak of resources in terms of the three M’s—men, money, and materials. To these three, they must add time. However, there is a distinct difference between time and the three other resources. If they do not use their own money or materials today, they are available tomorrow. To a lesser degree, this is also true of men. It is not at all true of time, for time is a highly perishable commodity. An hour lost today is lost forever! To success in the Sacramento Fire Department, you must competently manage your resources—people, materials, and information. However, perhaps the most precious resource you must manage is time. You cannot replace it once it is gone. Time management can also be called, “personal management,” since you are the only thing you can control. The time-management sills you develop as a fire fighter and a student will set a pattern for you as a future captain. That is why you must cultivate a process for effectively managing time today. #RandolphHarris 17 of 27

In the Sacramento Fire Department, you encounter significant barriers to effective time management. However, you can overcome those barriers by setting goals and using systematic techniques. Time management is a system for getting things done as efficiently and productively as possible. You assume leadership responsibilities in the Sacramento Fire Department, your time will become even more valuable and its management more complex. You will need to manage not just your own time, but also the time of those you lead. When you put an efficient time-management system into action, you become a more effective leader because your team members perceive the value you place on both your time and theirs. The respect you show for their time will support everyone’s efforts to become more efficient as the unit works toward meeting tsk deadlines and completing the mission schedule. However, it all starts in college and training, where your studies require significant time-management skills. Your success at cultivating good time-management skills depends on your ability to set aside enough time for each of your classes, sports, and other activities. Doing this efficiently requires that Sacramento firefighters recognize time wasters (black holes). Set goals that reduce patterns of wasted time, and implement a system of the POWER model. The POWER model, discussed later, moved firefighters toward their personal, professional, and career goals. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27

How does the value you place on time management translate into your team members wasting less time? Is there a trickle-down effect? Pick a goal you have set for yourself: Make enough money to buy a car; graduate with honours; land a summer internship with the Sacramento Fire Department; improve your English language kills. Now turn it into a SMART goal. What did you learn about yourself and your goal? In your schedule, “black holes” are spaces of time that eat into your productivity and prevent you from reaching your goals and the goals of others you work with. Black holes devour productive time and consume your efficiency. You will learn that a lot of your associates, peers, and friends are black holes. The ability to identify black holes is the first and most important aspect of good time management. To do this, you should conduct an informal inventory of how you use your time. Consider a typical week and, within that week, a typical day. Most people are surprised at how much of their time is unfocused and unstructured—putting things off—and distracters—things that take you away from your planned work or activities. One way to fight procrastination is to realize that it will only make things worse. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. Distracters are often subtle. They might be talking on the phone with friends or relatives, losing track of time while Instant Messaging (IM) or playing video games, or helping other people on their projects. Or you may face an unexpected change in your work schedule. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27

Learning to deal with distracters—saying no when necessary; turning off your cell phone, the IM, or the video game; negotiating your schedule with your supervisor; even finding a different spot to work or study away from distractions—builds the discipline that helps you stay on course. Trying to overcome these two sources of black holes in your life goes a long way toward improving your use of available time. Additionally, the better you get at completing work on schedule, the better you will get at scheduling time for recreation, hobbies, social activities, and other things you enjoy. Goal setting is a critical part of managing your time. If you do not know where you are going, how can you possibly calculate how long it will take you to get there? If you want one of these new smart homes, you have to start by making yourself smart. The SMART model: Specific: make the goal concrete and clear. Measurable: Decide how you will measure success in reaching the goal. Achievable: Keep goals reasonable—milestones are helpful. Realistic: Consider other factors that may affect the goal. Time-bound: make yourself accountable for a specific date. The POWER Model. Prepare: Set SMART goals. Organize: Keep a calendar to know where you are, where you have been, and what is ahead. Work: Work on establishing boundaries for your time—prioritize activities, and avoid procrastinating, learn when to say no, and keep track of how long important tasks take. Evaluate: Review how you are spending your time. Rethink: Explore better and better ways of managing your time—identify what you need to change, and enter the God mode. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27

The SMART model for goal setting is a useful starting point for filling up black holes with useful activities—activities that get you where you want to go on your mission, in your career, and in your life. One you have established your goals, you need to apply an effective time-management system to reach them. Practice techniques of good time management, such as completing tasks before moving to the next item or limiting distractions when doing exercise or homework. Some useful tools include c calendar, a weekly schedule, and a To-Do list. You can find sophisticated time-management assistants at an office-supply store or perhaps a book store. Your personal computer may also have useful time-management software. In applying any time-management strategy, it is a good idea to keep in mind that you must be flexible. Since on one can foresee the future, you need to be willing to modify your plans to accommodate events and even a few surprises. Using time more efficiently than the enemy is the first requirement of victory. Successful time management is a never-ending process. It is time to take control of your time using the SMART technique and POWER model you have learned. Start today! Common sense assists the triumph of reason over sentimentality. The faculty of reason also has two phases; the lower is practical and reaches perfection in the scientist; the higher is abstract and reaches perfection in the metaphysician. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27

If we bury our reason alive, so much the worse for us. Its wraith will rise up one day and sneer in revenge at our silly errors and self-made troubles. The utmost use of the reasoning faculties cannot always provide for every factor in a situation. There are some only which intuition can grasp—the Universal laws, for instance. This explains the miscalculations of men who possess the most highly developed rationality but who lack a counterbalancing development of intuition. “I wasn’t a particular religious person before my injury, and I’m not a fanatic now, but I do attend church a lot more regularly and say prayers more. The only way I can figure it out, the gift of life dame through Jesus. I went back and looked at the accident scene, and there is no way I should have lived. I should be dead right now. Today, I’m on administrative detail, I’m doing a job I really don’t want to do, in fire prevention. I give 100 percent while I’m working, but it’s not where my heart is at. Riding around a street, going to inspect a building, I’ll here an alarm come in, and I’m like the old fire horse that’s pulling a milk wagon. I wander over and want to go to the fireground. I’ll stand around and watch, and it’s like you want to get in there. My back is healed enough, and I feel I could do the job. The doctors say they think I can do it, but they’re afraid of the way we live in the fire department. It’s all uncontrolled. You’re on the ladder and you’re reaching for somebody—you’re on the roof and you’re falling—and you grab something. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27

“If it were the type of work where you’re lifting boxes all day, I mean you can stand there and lift, but fire department lifting it totally different. I mean, you could be on a stairway and the stairway could give out, and the next thing you know a ladder could come down on you. So right now they don’t want me going back into the fires. The chief of the fire department has worked with me, and he could have told me to get the hell out, but he said we’ll wait and see. If it comes to the time that the doctors are not going to change their minds, then I’ll take a permanent job. The alternative is to take the pension and get out, do something different. I don’t think that I could. I could go out and train myself. I could do contracting work. If I needed to go to school, I’d go to school. No matter what I wanted to do, I could do it, I think. I have no doubt in myself. But at my age—I’m getting up to thirty-eight—they’re not hiring people out there. There are no jobs around, really. I could get an insurance job, you know, underwriting or adjustment, but I wouldn’t want it. I like feeling the way I do about myself when I put the uniform on. I get up and come to work, I look forward to coming to work. I look forward to doing my job with the people I work with. I mean, you meet any fireman, you’ve got something in common with him. I was on a night inspection at a restaurant, and a chief from Santa Clara was there. He introduced himself, and we must have talked for forty-five minutes. Things like that. If I was an insurance salesman and went into a restaurant, nobody would know. And if they did, they wouldn’t give a damn. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27

“It’s an interesting life. There are great feelings of satisfaction. One of the rescues I had was basement fire. I got a man out of there. We were the third engine in, and I was leading off. The radio said there were people trapped down there. I came up and said, ‘Did you find the people yet?’ the guys were like, ‘No. No.’ Nobody was going down to look. I was like, ‘Bubba, get your ass in there.’ I went down and made a search, and on the first search, there he was. I had him up and out and back to where he lived. If I hadn’t acted, he probably would have died. I had one fire where there was a picture in the newspaper of a lieutenant brining a kid down the ladder, but I had handed the kid out. It was the same thing. Guys were searching in the room, and I just made a turn and went to the other room, and bang, there the kid was in the corner. I went right at him, and there was the guy right on the ladder, and it was perfect. Those types of things. It’s the kind of job where even before you’re out of fire school, you know if you want to do this type of work or not. You get people who are afraid of heights, putting a mask on. If you make it through that, it’s a rewarding job. You touch more people’s lives than you think just by doing the job, even if it’s just going out and pumping a flooded basement, or going out on inspection and showing them about a cord on their car, or smoke detector programs. It touches you to know that you’re helping people that way, that it’s true purpose of your job, and that your job is to protect the citizens. It’s going to make you feel good. If you’re doing your job right, you’re going to feel good about it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27

“I miss the excitement, the chance to do the things that make you feel good, making a rescue, cutting somebody out of a car, helping somebody out of a window. Even a vacant building fire, when you put the ashes out and you look back, it makes you feel good that you did it. You pull up, and it’s all fire, and you say, ‘Oh man.’ And you get in there, and it’s out, and you feel good about yourself. I guess it’s like a pitcher pitching a no-hitter. I mean, it worked good, everybody feels good, and they’re all smiling. You’re out in twenty below at four in the morning, but, ‘Good job, good job.’ You get back, you sit around and have coffee and talk about it. That feeling is great. You go out and inspect a building, and you say, ‘The guy needs an extinguisher, big deal.’ Some guys on inspection don’t consider themselves part of the department, they don’t want to have the radio scanner on and hear that noise. It’s the way you feel about doing the job. I’ve always given 100 percent, and I feel good no matter what, if it’s a trash fire, a pot of food, whatever. I never shirked my duties, I was always in there, and nobody can say, ‘He’s a bum.’ I’m always with the people, with the men. You look back at old pumpers. When I came in, we were still using 1945 Macks. In ten more years, they’ll look at an old Mack picture and say, ‘My God, these guys used to stand on the back steps.’ Riding the truck company, that was the biggest thing, just riding on the side, and when they turned you just turned your head that way. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27

“I remember it pulling out, and if you didn’t run down the street and jump on it, then that was it. You’d get up there and ride the truck to the fire. It’s changed now. It changed for the better because of safety. You look at what people did, they worked twenty-three hours and had one off; they went home and ate, and came back and put in another twenty-three hours. The only reason those guys did it was because they felt the same way I do. Why else would a person do the job for the money you make? It’s because you like it, and because of the tradition. You look around and see all the firemen dying of cancer. But there is only so much you can do to make the job safe and still do the job. Hopefully, it never gets to the point where you’ll be standing on the sidewalk and somebody’s house is on fire, and you say, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, we have to let it burn down.’ It’s taken ten years off my life. A guy who came through school with me died of cancer. This guy was thirty-seven years old. I’m an old guy now, still in my thirties. When I came in the department, there were guys in their forties and fifties, and it was like, ‘Is that old man still in here? When is the old bastard leaving?’ I guess I’m the old guy in the department now, even though I’m still young. If I were a banker, I would hope to live to be seventy or eighty, but if a fireman makes it to fifty, he takes his pension, and a month later he’s dying of some weird disease.” Those sceptics who reject the possibility of attaining truth are already stating something as truth and thereby refuting their own theory. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27

 If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. To help our firefighters, pleasure donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have all the resources they require. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27

The Winchester Mystery House

Never has there been a building so talked about. You will find The Winchester Mystery House in what was once the countryside known as “Winchester Valley,” where it has left past guests feeling a little spooked passing through certain rooms. It is well known for its reputation of being the world’s most haunted location. Do you fear the dark? Does the idea of the supernatural scare you? Do you sometimes anticipate the worst that can happen to you? Do you shiver when you read about victims of violent crime and think “that could have been me?” Does life seem insane? When you walk through the twisting hallways of The Winchester Mansion, are you apprehensive about what might be around the next corner? While standing at the door-to-nowhere, have you ever worried that life may have no meaning? Are you anxious that the next day might be your last? Do your days sometimes seem irremediably gloomy? Are you afraid of dying? We have examined your case thoroughly and think you will find the antidote for your condition at The Winchester Mystery House. A daily dose of horror is just the tonic you need. If fortifies the spirit with bracing jolts of terror. It inoculates the soul against fears that hound us all. It quickens the reflexes against life’s inhospitable surprises and tempers the imagination with thoughts unthinkable. Here you will find madmen in a variety of shapes and sizes who will help make things seem more rational. Feeling a bit self-absorbed? There is nothing like a tale of Mrs. Winchester’s hauntings to give you the right perspective.

The Winchester Estate dates back to the late 19th century, and it has a history that is packed full of legends and stories of spirits. The guided post-sunset walk takes visitors through the history of the mansion, while also offering a chance to spot some of the more well-known Winchester ghosts. There are stories of a little girl playing in the hallways and tugging at bedcovers at night and a woman in white who crosses the courtyard and passes through the walls. Lightening in colours no one can name sear across the infinite and multihued sky in jagged shards the size of which no one can conceive. Alien winds scream their impossible being in warring cacophony of notes no one can ever believe at volumes none can bear. And when the winds pick up on the fourth floor of the mansion, they make an eerie whining noise. It sounds as if everything around you is screaming. Right before a quick scratching sound, then something flares. A small spot of light glides like a firefly toward you. Another flare, then a dull yellow flow. A thin man has been said to step into the light. “Found some others out there,” is all he says before disappearing before your very eyes, and then everything is absolute darkness. Outside, the winds are said to kick up; it screams across the night. Well, maybe it is the wind. We all know the story of The Winchester Mansion.

The carpenters, who worked day and night for 36 years to build the mansion, that was once nine stories high, containing as many as 600 rooms. They knew the area was dense in spiritual energy. The hallways often possessed a great river of shadows. As these men felt a moan rising from a core of solid fear, they were so afraid that they would stand frozen for the space of one deep, shuddering breath. It was believed even the objects they could see were enemies, because they were keeping secrets. They knew, but were not telling. The cold quiet of The Winchester Mansion was a familiar song. Often, Mrs. Winchester’s guests would crough down, huddling against the floor, until help arrived. The mansion is situated over the crossing of two Ley Lines. In these areas, the veneer between the physical and spirit realms is thinner and much more permeable. This permeability and natural energy allow entities to manifest much more readily than in a normal location. Any thought or action in these areas, whether positive or negative has a much stronger and more focused effect. In the case of The Winchester Mansion decades of compounded suffering, negativity and strong emotional experiences have left a marked effect on the atmosphere in and around the mansion.

Some tour guides have heard chanting coming from outside the mansion and have heard their names being called. Others have reported seeing a woman hovering in the mansion. Although her journals are sometimes vague, Mrs. Winchester experienced bizarre poltergeist activity during construction. She mentions to a friend the incredible amount of poltergeist activity that occurred during the time spent building the front of the mansion. One night, when darkness fell, the mansion was filled with eerie music like nothing Mrs. Winchester had ever heard before. Creatures from her maddest nightmares filled into the Grand Ball Room in some kind of funeral procession. She watched from the hallway, terrified of being seen yet unable to turn away. The very last thing she saw was her maid at the end of the procession, following the creatures off into the darkness.

Mr. Hasen, one of Mrs. Winchester’s foremen, had written about his tools getting moved to the far corners of the room when his back was turned. Mr. Hansen was staring at ta kaleidoscope World of shifting, flickering lights, a surfaceless void with an unimaginably distant vanishing point near which huge amorphous shapes twisted and withered in a constant fury of becoming. He had been a hint that the matter that made up the forms of this World which everyone accepted as solid and separate was in fact all one and that only probability kept everything as it was and kept our reality apart from a multiverse of others. Although they were paid three times the going rate, provided with medical care, subsidized groceries, and lived in Victorian cottages once on the estate, carpenters employed by Mrs. Winchester frequently suddenly left and did not come back, never giving a reason to their departure. On September 5, 1922, construction efforts were suddenly stopped when the ladders several carpenters were working from were pushed away from the wall, forcing them to jump several stories. Moments later, it was discovered that Mrs. Winchester had passed away in her sleep.

The mansion that has survived such a long history, is a marvel to see in person. Today, it stands four stories high, and has an estimated 160 rooms, of which 110 are open for tour. There has been some restoration over the years and ongoing maintenance. Come inside the mansion to see the priceless architecture and learn of its history. The guided tours are exquisitely led by a well prepared and enthusiastic team, who make sure that you and all guests are entertained by the great stories. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. Even if you do not believe ghost stories, you might still get goosebumps passing through the most infamous basement.  Enjoy panoramic views and discover quirky features such as secret staircases, doors that open to nowhere, stairs to the ceiling, hidden trapdoors, and other unusual features.

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

Why Choose Harris?

Harris Plumbing, Heating, Air, & Electric has been in business for 30 years. How many businesses can say that? We take pride in everything we do – no matter how big or small the service call might be. We’re here to help your home be as safe and comfortable as possible for you and your family. We take that responsibility very seriously as a company. Harris will ensure you have the information you need to decide what to do next, whatever your home is facing. We’ll perform a diagnosis and detail what issues are present before starting any work. This gives you a personalized quote and service plan specific to your home’s needs – not some random quote based on the best guess. The only way we can do our best work is to make sure we handle the issues at hand. https://www.callharrisnow.com/about-us/

The Ultimate Driving Machine

BMW continues to dominate the luxury car space. With its top ranking in Consumer Reports’ Auto Brand Report Card and consistent market share growth, BMW has demonstrated its ability to produce high-performing, reliable vehicles that meet consumer demands.

BMW stands out due to its focus on driving dynamics and engineering excellence. While other luxury brands prioritize comfort and opulence, BMW is known for creating cars that are fun to drive and offer a unique connection between the driver and the machine. https://bmw.niello.com/